For the Greater Good
by The New Mandalord
Summary: It is the 41st Millennium, and there is nothing but war. On the Eastern Fringe of the Ultimar is a growing Empire comprised of Humans and Aliens. They are known as the Tau. They fight, die, live, love, prosper and die under their social belief in the Greater Good. And if any faction tries to harm the peace that they had achieved, then they will pay the ultimate price.
1. Imperial Guard

**Hello Everybody, The New Mandalord is back for the time being with a new story.**

**Now somethings that you will need to know about this is that it will be a collection of one-shots. So even though ot may have the "complete" sign next to it, that does not mean it will stay like that. **

**Another is that this is not canon, this is a alternative reality to the W40K universe so if you are a canon freak then take it easy.**

**Lastly I do not own W40K. Games Workshop does. **

* * *

_Secession_

_Allow a single rebel world go unpunished and countless more will rise up, all clamoring for those religious and economic freedoms better known to loyal citizens of the Imperium as heresy and ingratitude._

_On the world of Feronis Pima, the seeds of rebellion were planted in the hard frozen mud that had ravaged the planet for over twelve hundred years. It began when volcanic eruptions on the northern continent, near the pole and spewed poisonous mud and ash all over the planet. The sudden climatic change wiped out over half of the eighty million human populations and reduced planetary productivity to almost nothing. On countless occasions in the years that followed, one loyalist governor after another begged the Administratum for aid. Eventually, the Administratum approved the deferment of Imperial tributes, but more direct aid in the form of food, medicine, and technologies was repeatedly denied. Imperial coffers, the Feronins were told, were being drained by anti-xenos campaigns throughout the segmentum._

_When the remaining Feronin scientists finally announced the beginning of a return to warmer temperatures, the population had dropped to a two-thirds loss of it pre-catastrophic figures. But there was another force present on Feronis Pima's World, for which none of the generals and their Imperial Guardsmen was unprepared – a force that would claim all too many of which ever faction tried to take it._

_For centuries, the insufferable Tau had been expanding their Empire into the Fourth and Fifth sept, after they're crushing victory over the Ultramarines on Macragge. The traitor, Colonel Kain Russell Osman, and his brood of xenos scum and heretics alike had been taking more and more worlds after Macragge fell. Circe, Tarentus, Quintarn, Masail and countless others fell to Tau forces under Osman's command in seventy-two hours. More secure locations, like Talasa Prime and Konor, fell within two weeks. Even planets, like Espandor and Calth, had fallen under Tau control. With those planets gone, the Tau have complete control of their recourse, territories and technology that dates back to the Dark Age of Technology. Because of this, the Tau Empire had received a booster shot, if such, in furthering their technological advances. _

_The Valhallan Twelfth and Vostroyan eighty-fifth had been sent to originally crush the Feronin rebels, restore order, secure any artifacts, secure the artifact and return to the Fourth Black Crusade on Cadia. But with the arrival of Kain and his damn caste, the simple conflict had turned into a fell out war. _

_The old foe, for you see, wants everything but values nothing._

Extract: _Hammer and Bolter: Collected Essay from the Fourth and Fifth Sphere Expanse_, eds. Commissar. Jillian von Kisser.

* * *

Morning at the Eastern Front began, as it most often did, with the dark sky shifting from midnight blue to slate-grey. Down on the ground, everything was turning brilliant white. Only regular clearance work prevented the heavy snow from filling the Tau trenches. Out here, eight kilometers east of the proper towns, or any proper settlements that the Earth Caste had cut into the frozen earth. If Kain lived through this campaign – and odds of that were unsure at that – he was sure he'd remember it, not for the fury of the incorrigible Vostroyans or bull-headed Valhallans, but for the relentless assault of the planet's deep winter.

Icy winds gusted down the firing trench, catching the snow as it fell, and hurling it against his army with a fury that was almost a living force. Heavy fur scarves and cloaks became coated on their windward side. But the warriors under his command had weathered worse in their time. It would take more than the Feronis Pima ice-age to shake their morale to the fight.

Kain moved up to the firing step, raised his unprotected head over the lip of the trench and peered out between coils of rusting razorwire and sandbags that were frozen harder than rocks. The deep winter had pulled powdery blankets over yesterday's dead, and there was little evidence of violence that had shaken the planet. Only irregular mounds of snow on the otherwise level battlefield hinted at the multitude of dead Imperials that lay beneath.

Given the holy white that lay before him, it was hard to believe a battle had fought here at all: no scorched ground, no smoking craters. Yet, barely twenty hours ago, Kain had led his platoon of Tau Fire Warriors, Humans, Kroots, and Vespids in a bloody offense to these very trenches.

Here he was again, called back from the warmth of his bunk after XV25 stealth teams had alerted the regiment to a massing of enemy forces beyond the tree line to the east. Tired as they were, those off-duty had quickly reassembled to face the inevitable attack.

The Imperium, damn them all, seemed impervious to the deep winter. The Vostroyans and Valhallans were used to fighting in these conditions. Unfortunately, so were Kain's forces.

On either side of Kain, the trenches snaked north and south into the snow veiled distance, filled with men, women and aliens in greatcoats and armor of his Forty-Third Regiment's Seventh Company. The stamped their feet on the frozen planking of the trenched floor, and rubbed armored glove hands over their weapons to brush away the snow and ice. Their pockets were bulging with power-packs for their Pulse Rifles waiting to be loading at the last minute so that the cold would not make the barrel brittle and breakable.

There were four hundred and fifty-six Taus, Humans, Kroots and Vespids at the last count, spread across five platoons. He started off with five hundred. Forty-four had been lost trying to take the trench systems away from the Valhallans. At certain points along the lines were mixed teams of heavy bolter teams, lascannon crews, and drone sentry turret armed with burst cannons and missile pods.

Kain pulled his scarf down for a moment, so he could scratch his face where the stumbles of coarse hair on his face. The bitter air nipped at his exposed skin. Every face around him was covered against the cold, some had scarves and greatcoats and gloves over their armor, others with rebreather masks that offered better protection against the elements, but reduced peripheral vision. Kain had always allowed his soldiers a certain amount of freedom in the way they configured their gear. Each soldier knew themselves best, after all. Even so, he'd have welcomed the chance to read their expressions as they readied themselves for the inevitable Imperium assault.

"Stand strong," he thought. "You're tired, cold and hungry, I know, but after this battle, we've got some rest and relaxation. Hold fast until then."

He knew there would be mistakes brought on by exhaustion, and decided to order extra checks on cold climate discipline. He was originally from Valhalla, so he knew what threats to look out for. Pneumonia and frostbite were constant threats on worlds like this. The deep winter stalked every man and woman here, whether human or xenos, waiting for a simple mistake, for a chance to claim the lives of the careless.

Early in the conflict, the youngest and greenest Tau and Kroots under his command had suffered in depressingly high numbers. Frostbite: for some it was lips or what they had for a nose, for others it was fingers or toes. Thankfully the Earth Caste was able to make some upgrades to the armor that kept the remaining warriors alive, but one fracture in the suits would cause instant freezing under a minute.

The humans, on the other hand, he did not really worry about. They were mixed veterans from worlds like this. There were from Valhallans, Firstborns, even Stormtroopers from Cadia. Many were veterans who, like Kain, had opted to serve beyond their ten years of compulsory service. Such men and women would have sensed the coming storm of battle just as he had.

Three Vespid flyers flew in, landing in front of him. Each one carried a neutron blaster and a few EMP grenades. He sent them ahead to set up melta bombs to double as mines, and demolition charges to cause the Imperium advance trouble.

"How does it look?" Kain asked.

"The gue'las are sending their remaining regiment here," one Vespid said, speaking in a tone of gothic that was most made out of insect-like clicks.

"I see," Kain said with a yawn. "Go back to the GeoFront. Tell the Earth caste that we need those Broadsides. Those Imperial bastards are going to come at us with everything they got, and we need all the help we can get."

"Yes, Gue'vesa'O Osman." The Vespids turned to his comrades, said something to them in its native tongue, and flew back to the GeoFronts.

Kain tried to gauge the mood of the soldiers around him. Despite their being covered head to toe against the razor wind, it wasn't all that hard to sense their agitation. Their bodies were in continuous motion, keeping their joints loose and their blood pumping in readiness for combat. It kept them warm, which was good for the Tau. They hated the cold. Many were veterans who, like Kain, had opted to serve beyond their ten years of compulsory service before joining the Empire. Such soldiers could sense the coming storm of battle as he had.

He raised his magnoculars and squinted into the lense, picking up the tree line just over five kilometers east of their position. Small tremors and the thick plums of black smoke coming from the Mortan forest told him that the Imperial advance was becoming more heated and desperate. As he adjusted the magnification, bringing the wall of blue pine into sharp focus, a Chimera limped out. It was on fire and completely out of control. Half the hull was melted away, the other half was melting, and when it fell into a small embankment the transport exploded in a beautiful display of instant death to anything around it. A few of his soldiers moved as hot shrapnel rained on them.

"Hold your positions," Kain reminded them, keeping the soldiers within the trenches to avoid going for trophies.

After watching for another minute with no further sign of movement, Kain returned his magnoculars to the case on his belt and decided to get suited up.

After the conquest of Macragge, the Tau's military gear had received a type of booster shot as earth caste engineers dismantled Ultramarine war gear, power weapons, vehicles and relics and applied them to the Greater Good. As a type reward from the Etheral caste, Kain was allowed to build his own battlesuit, using the designs he picked up.

Kain's suit was quickly becoming the normal for human battlesuits. It had the build of an X89 Crisis suit, so it outfitted with heavier armor for enhanced protection, but had a very human feel to it. On one arm was a burst cannon that had the words "RAVEN HUNTER" painted along the barrel; his way of paying homage to the Second War for Nimbosa. While on the other was fitted with a power fist that had four retractable lightning claws that he personally pulled off a dead Raven Guard.

He turned and muttered a curse against the Imperial dogs. His regimental tech-priest, enginseer Mehmed, was deeper in the complex of trenches, cleaning out the small piles of ash that collected under the joints. His actions, and robotized grumbling, showed a mild frustration.

Some two thousand years after the massive volcanic eruption in the far north had kick-started Feronis Prime's ice age, tiny particles of volcanic debris in high atmosphere always seemed to rain down and collect on anything and everything.

"Colonel," said Mehmed as he closed the power fist arm up. "your suit had collected more than a year of ash in vital areas. Thank the Emperor that it had not killed you."

"Maybe it's my dumb luck that's saving me." Kain said as he shed his great coat. "Why don't you let the drones take care of that? That is what I assigned them for."

"They are far too naïve, sir." Mehmet said. "They have the Machine Spirit, but not the mind. They're plasma cutters could fuse volcanic glass to metal and cause the whole system to explode."

"Sometimes I feel guilty for making deal with bots that makes your life one-hundred percent easier."

Mehmet gave off a sarcastic, mechanical chuckle. "Just do me a favor, and don't die out there. It'll be a shame to see such a beautiful machine to die out there, and I don't want to end up on a firing squad."

Kain was about to answer when the vox-bead in his ear crackled. It was Lieutenant Dales, commander of ninth platoon. "Dales to company leader. Movement amongst the trees. Lots of movements!"

Kain climbed inside his battlesuit, positioning himself into the padding that conformed to his body. The suit's servos came to life with a quiet rumble, quickly fading to near silence. A low whine came from behind him, complex machinery sliding on well-oiled rails into position. He winced, preparing himself. He hated this part!

A special liquid, clear as water and as thick as syrup, started to enter the suit. There was no point in holding his breath; because once his lungs were filled he could breathe normally. But he usually had the human instinct to do it, which made his fingers and toes curl.

Now he was the machine. He flexed a limb experimentally, enjoying the sensation of reasserted control as the drowning nausea faded. His arm – his real one – remained positioned by his side, nestled snugly in its padded bindings. Instead, sensed rather than seen, a heavy power fist, completer with Raven lightning claws, flex from the massive shoulder of the suit.

He moved the muscles of his neck, mentally commanding his skull to rotate and allow him the opportunity to look around. His vertebrae remained straight and immobile but the optics cluster perched atop the suit oscillated and flexed – a replacement cranium just as responsive to his neural commands as the real thing. Flicking through spectral filters was a simple as blinking.

He examined his surroundings. The bunker hold was a cavern of pale, cold concrete that looked like it needed major repairs before another artillery strike took it down. Four other suits, X8 Crisis Battlesuits, hulked near him. Earth caste drones and Enginseers equipped missile pods and plasma canons to their arms. One suit raised its right limb, heavy flamer fuel lines automatically slackening to compensate for the movement, and ignited its pilot light with a quiet hiss. Another was equipped with a pair of battledrones, held aloft on thrumming anti-grav fields, diagnostically manipulating the heavy weapons slung to their bellies, checking targeting facilities and functionality.

"Interface successful," Mehmet grunted, instinctually looking at all of Kain's, and his staff's, vital signs on a tablet.

"Status checks," he commanded to his staff.

"Ready." Said Shas'la Chou.

"Ready." Said Shas'ui Ju.

"Ready." Said Shas'ui Kais.

Kain keyed the company command channel on his suit's vox, cleared his throat and said, "Colonel Osman to all platoon leaders. I want all squads on full alert. Wake up, ladies and gentlemen. Expect a charge from the tree line any minute. We really pissed them off."

Kain's officers broke through the static with brief confirmations.

Moving through the tight tunnels became harder due to Kain's enhanced size, but he maneuvered himself to the front line with ease.

He flexed his fingers. That feeling had descended on him again, the tightness in his muscles, in his gut, as if he needed to piss. He knew it was partly the cold trying to keep in, but it was more than just that.

Adrenaline slowly increased. He always felt it before a battle. Another tide of pointless violence was building, and about to spill over on them, eroding the relative silence of the deep winter. The feeling was so strong that he felt a shock of doubt run through his mind.

How many will I lose this time? Twenty? Thirty? All of them. By Terra and the Greater Good, let it be less or none at all.

If he worked smart, and if the Emperor was truly with him, maybe he could keep the numbers down.

He keyed his vox to company's open channel and addressed his troops. "Ready yourselves, xenos and heretics. Check your kit. Follow your platoon leaders."

Up and down the line, he could sense his soldiers preparing themselves, switching mental gears at the sound of his voice. There was more than enough time for him to whisper a small prayer to the Emperor. "Emperor, bestow on me Your righteous fury and Your furious strength. Let me become the storm that blasts the enemy from Your sight."

_"That'll have to do,"_ thought Kain. _"I've never been much of a spiritual man, Emperor forgive me."_

Shas'ui T'au Kai spoke from behind him. "Gue'vesa'O, Second and Eighth Companies are reporting movement all along the lines. Looks like a big one."

As if on cue, an all too familiar sound erupted from the distant trees: the rage-filled battle cry that the Imperial Guard gives off right before a suicide charge. If the sub-zero temperatures of the frozen Feronis Prima days weren't bad enough, a roar from men with guns to their heads would do it. More human roaring sounded on the air, racing over the right white drifts to the ears of the anxious front line, signaling for the battle to start.

"Get over to the southern line, Kais. Keep me up on the status of the Second and Eighth. We don't want any surprises."

"Understood, Gue'vesa'O," replied Kais. His suit's jetpacks flared bright blue, and the snow and ice and rock melted around him as he took off.

"Ju, head up to the northern line and support the ninth through fifteenth."

"Yes, gue'vesa'O."

"Chou, you're with me. Let's send these zealots into the graves they been so happily digging for themselves!" Kain switch to the company's channel. "Ready yourselves, heretics and xenos."

Railguns and carbine charge packs were drawn from pockets all along the trench, and clicked into place under long, polished barrels.

"Maintain fire discipline. Power setting at maximum. Choose your targets. I want redundancy minimized. Remember, all of you, that temperature, visibility and the nature of our opponent have reduced lethal approximately in half – for them. We are a part of the Tau Empire. We can hit a fly half a continent away, so I expect seeing plenty of death lines between here and the forest."

In scholas and academies across the Imperium, officers and commissars were taught how to tap that faith. There were entire study programs dedicated to battlefield oration, but that didn't help Kain, because his was field commission. Everything he knew about leadership had been learnt the hard way, through blood, sweat, tears and switching sides on battlefields from Cadia to the Eastern fringe.

As is summoned by the thought, they showed themselves now, bellowing their challenge as they broke cover. They crashed from between the trees, a thunderous tide of indoctrinated cannon fodder, led by fanatical commissars and cheered on by insane priests, kicked up great sprays of snow as they raced over no-man's land towards the Tau lines.

"Mark your targets," ordered Kain. "First volley on my order. Not one shot till we see their breath misting in the air. Allow them to extend themselves. Heavy gunners and sentry drones on dense knots only, please. And whoever takes out their commissars or priests will receive a two week furlough!"

Normally Kain would clutch a pendant that lay beneath his clothes. It wasn't anything holy, but it was given to by someone who he deeply cared about. It was replicate of a kroot fang, made from polished onyx, and hung from a worn leather strap around his neck. A pretty common souvenir within the Empire, but it served as a sort of good luck charm.

He mumbled a quick prayer for the one who gave him the necklace and armed his weapons. "Let's break their backs!"

Kain felt his adrenaline surge as he watched the enemy speed towards them, signaling his suit's and body's readiness for the fight. The cold lost some of its bite. His fatigue faded and all his long years of front-line training and experience rose to the fore.

Along the trench in directions, men, women, both Tau and human alike, made ready to fire at the tide of charging humans. He raised his power-fist arm high above his head. Out on the snowfields, the human stampede swept closer.

Kain fired several burst shots at the charging horde, thinning out the line and voxed the words his fire warriors were waiting for. "Open fire!"

A searing volley of bright blue plasma bolts blazed from the trenches, each shot slicing through the air with a distinctive hiss-crack. Scores of charging Imperials howled in agony and fell clutching their blown off body parts. Las-guns and grenade luanchers were flung aside as bodies tumbled to lifeless heap. But for all those that fell, there were hundred more that took their place. Their flak armour did very little to protect them from the Fire warriors' accuracy.

The heavy bolters, lascannons, and sentry turrets opened fire, filling any warrior's ears with deep machine chatter. Down the line he saw a large explosion of fire scorch across the snowfield, melting the ice, rock and flesh.

"Kais, tell second through eighth to fire at will," voxed Kain. "They do not get to the trenches. Do you hear? Fire at will!"

Enemy las-fire, hot enough to scorch through any human body, bit great chunks of frozen dirt from the sandbags on the trench lip. They were sending in kasrkin trooper now. They were the elite troopers of the Imperial Guard, and came with the best weapons, armour, and training; not to mention their moral was unwavering.

"Take those bastards down, Fire Warriors. Don't repeat what happened on Carthage!"

All of his veteran warriors would understand that. Carthage was the bloodiest campaign to date for the Empire. All in city, close combat fighting with no support from their Kroot of Vespid allies, so learning how to perform, and excel at hand-to-hand combat quickly became a life or death difference. During that time, Kain highly supported looting dead kasrkins, stealing any power weapons they had. Afterwards, his superiors tried to find ways in incorporating melee fighting into standard Tau military tactics.

But this was not Carthage, too clean and cold for Carthage, and hopefully being with human comrades were more than enough training for what might happen. Hopefully, that might never happen.

High velocity laser beams repelled off his shields, causing them to flare and dance with the most brilliant and deadly colors. Kain just had to think of leaping, and he was already in the air. His burst cannon was already firing before he hit the ground, but the problem was that the super-charged bolts of plasma made no man's land softer than he would've liked it. If there wasn't a layer of bodies under him, he surely would've been trapped in the quick freezing mud.

Kain swung his over-sized fist into a knot of kasrkins, making their lifeless bodies high into the air. Another squad tried to flank him from the side, but they soon experienced Tau legendary accuracy. His actions lead a form of inspiration in his warriors, and their solid firing discipline and Fire Warrior accuracy were taking their tolls on the humans. Out in no man's land, the first charge broke. Stragglers turned and sped back towards the trees to join up the second wave.

The heavy rattling and booming from the heavy weapons ceased.

Kain keyed up his vox again. "Good work, Fire Warriors, but this is no time for back-slaps and souvenir hunting. Give me casualty report."

"_Ju reporting in. Ninth through thirteenth suffered minium injuries, no casualties._"

"_Kais reporting. Second through eighth suffered five casualties. They tried a suicide bombing with a Chimera._"

Terrific. They switched to blowing themselves up.

Before he got his own casualty report, another wave of Imperial Guardsmen had already broken from the trees; this time with Leman Russ battle tanks.

"Second wave," he called. "Ammo counters and charge packs, all of you! Lascannons, concentrate all fire on those tanks!"

Emperor above, prayed Kain, give us strength.

Bright streams of white light scorched from the trench and made contact with the tank's side, buying Kain enough time to claw his way out of the frozen earth, and make it back to the trenches. A salvo of Smart Missiles screamed across no-man land, smashed into the hull of the closest tanks, causing them to blow up instantly. The remaining flew over the dead and caused only minor damage to the second wave.

One of the damned Imperium's tanks managed to smash through the flaming wreckage of the first wave, sustaining minor damage and breaking through with its heavy bolter blazing. Its Battle Cannon fired, blinded by the smoke and fire, causing a small tremor and an unmanned pillbox exploded into a hail of heated rocks.

Putting most of his power into the legs, Kain fired himself from the trenches and smashed into the tank's heavy hull. Both his suit and the tank began to push against each other, neither one giving an inch of ground, and his shields were being whittled away buy the heavy bolter fire. The liquids inside his suit began to heat and boil to unbearable levels. Now he was missing the bone-biting cold outside. Switching all auxiliary power to his power gauntlet, he struck into the hull causing it to heavily dent and probably killing the gunner and injuring the driver. Giving a quick prayer of forgiveness to the Emperor, the long claws shot into the tank and the beast died then and there.

Kain gave a small sigh of relief. His warriors were safe for now. But the chill of battle quickly took him over. There were still more tanks, and his suit was completely drained of power. He struggled to move, but nothing was working. Everything was either drained of dangerously overheated, and knowing what the Imperial Guard did to humans, especially former officers, who deserted and switched side he almost prayed for death then being at the mercy of the damn Inquisition.

The frozen earth beneath him began to tremor once more, and Kain braced for the worst. One moment dragged by, then another, and then another. No damage was happening to his suit; in fact the Imperial tanks were in a full retreat and his own fire warriors had gone over the trench line and began to hunt down the remaining infinity.

Thank the Throne, he relaxed a bit in his suit. The tremors he was feeling were rail-blasts coming from unexpected, not waited for, and unanticipated Broadsuit support coming from Shas'El Kauyon'Do – better known as Commander Silenthunter. Seemed a bit ironic to have a name like that, considering he is the head of the mobile artillery on Feronis Prima.

There was a slight tapping on the hull of his suit. Not from lasgun fire, but from a certain techpriest.

"Commander," his voice was muffled by the suit. "are you all right in there?"

"Yeah," he answered, thank the emperor. The heavy doors opened and blistering white steam poured out, melting both ice and metal. Kain's skin was shining red, his own sweat turning to steam in the cold air, and most of his facial hair was gone. "Mehmet, patch me onto the Imperium's vox."

Mehmet called up the vox officer, a young kid named Alex, who managed to successfully patch him through to the Imperium's vox. Meaning he the second part of his plan worked, now he had to do his part.

"Attention all remaining Imperial forces – this is Commander Kain Russell Osman. Your own commanders and commissars are dead, and there is no fleet coming to re-enforce you. If you throw down your arms, you will not be persecuted or taken prisoner. Our water caste healers will look after your injured, and we will arrange transport back to Sigmentum Command. Any who wish to join us is free to do so, and any who wish to violently resist us will eradicate. The choice is, and always will be, yours."

* * *

At the same time of the drawn out battle, at the Imperium's main base, located in the old ruins of the capital city of Bryiron. They had sent out ninety-percent of their forces in a last ditch effort to push the Tau back, leaving just a handful of personal, even a smaller amount of veterans, to guard their base. This meant there were plenty gaps in their defenses for a single infiltrator to sneak in a cause some major damage.

General Vincent Coles, head of the Valhallan Twelth, known as the Iron Bears, sat in the ruins of what had been the Militant Governer's manor. He watched a small procession of Chimeras and Leman Russ Tanks move out to the front. Sentinels and his remaining men stood at direct attention, saluting off the remaining heavy firepower, and any who didn't quickly found themselves in front of a firing squad.

Colonel Zavid Hales, head of the Vostroyan eighty-fifth, entered the room, saluted and then stood at the ready. Vincent only gave a shrill nod and talked with a voice sharper than ice, "How are the men?"

"Tolerable, sir."

"Morale?"

"Good at central, but poor in the front."

"Causualties?"

"The same, maybe worse, sir."

"Firing squads?"

"Twenty today. Twelve for cowardice in the line of duty, and six for abandoning their posts, sir."

"Baneblades?"

"No word on when the fleets are going to bring them in, sir."

"I see," he gave a harsh grumble. "Look at this place. Once this was a fine city. A gleaming example of the Emperor's light – a center of industry, progess, and life. Now look at it. Hales, I will like to see this city built up again. I would like to see towers and spire of gleaming white. I would like to see our men on parade routes, not tour of duty. I would like to see every city on this planet, every colony in this blasted, besotted, miserable system turned to the service and industry of the imperium. And most importantly, I do not want to see all of that under the hands of the damned Xenos, in the Emperor's name!"

"In the Emperor's name, sir." Hales responded.

"But to see these dreams fulfilled, we must purge this planet clean of the Xenos and heretics and monsters which plague it." He continued. "And to do that, this base, our current center of command, must operate free of danger or harassment. Our remaining troops are ready. Our tanks, our Sentinels, our artillery, and Emperor will it; we will not need Baneblade support. So I will ask you again, Colonel – are we prepared? Or are we playing in the palms of the Xeno's hand?"

"We do what we can - and pray for victory." Said Hales, speaking more like a commissar then an officer. "Our enhanced Basilisk cannons have been prepared by our Techpriest Enginseers, has it not? They can be fired at will. If the heretic decides to march his army here, we will blow him and his lot straight to hell."

To a shadow, that was more than enough to end this base. The information had been tapped, the artifacts secure, and the vox systems hacked into. Their commissars and field officers were all dead, now all remained was their obnoxious artillery, annoying commanding officers, and eye sore of cannons.

Vincent saw something out of the corner of his eyes. The scarred gothic patterns that remained on the wall shifted imperfectly against the molten metal and blown out marble of the palace, this meant something was in the room with them and heard everything. In Vincent's mind, whether Imperial or Xenos, it heard too much and had to be eliminated. He slowly shifted his hand down to his artisan bolt pistol, while Colonel Hales clutched the hilt of his power sword. It hissed to life as he pulled it out, a hazy blue field of energy wrapped itself around the blade.

They both moved slowly through the empty room, pointing their weapons at anything that moved and only staying an arm length apart from each other. Vincent's cybernetic eye had had both heat and night vision, while Hales had minor psyker abilities, allowing them both to transverse through the darkness with relative ease. But, as if the Emperor himself commanded it, the room lit up in an explosion of plasma bursts.

Those kinds of rounds only came from Tau Burst Cannons. The damn Xenos' had sent in their stealth teams to finish them off instead of attacking them head on, the cowards! Vincent, who had experience fighting the Tau, leapt out of the way and managed to find cover amongst the rubble of a fallen statue, but Hales, who had no experience against the Eastern foes, had none and was encased in a cocoon of white heated energy. It happened so fast, Hales barely had time to scream a prayer to the Emperor as his skin burnt away and bones were reduced to ash. In the end, only his sword remained, and by the Throne, Vincent was not going down the same way.

He loaded his bolt-pistol with armor-piercing rounds and grabbed a concussion grenade grenade from his belt. Knowing Tau Infiltration teams, they always loved to over-use a strategy, thinking that their enemies would be too traumatized or enraged at seeing a comrade die like that. This made the Tau cocky, gullible and easy targets.

He pulled the pin and through the grenade over the rubble. When it exploded, Vincent rolled from cover and fixed his sights on the explosion. The grenade was made for disorientating and subduing tragets, and optics inside a battlesuit just amplified it, so it would be like shooting fish in a barrel in Vincent's mind. But there were no fish to shoot though, because there was no target.

Clearly the grenade had failed and he had blown his own cover. He could feel slight pressure from a gun barrel on his back, and he knew he was done for.

"Surrender now, human," The assailant said in an overly mechanical voice. "Your Emperor left you here to die alone on a frozen planet. Unlike him, we will show mercy. Join the Greater Good, and become one of us!"

"You keep your Greater Good!" Vincent said. "Our faith is in the Emperor, you will all die for heresy!"

Before the Stealth Hunter could activate its Burst Cannon, Vincent had decided to rob the alien of true victory. He said the final prayer, and fired a bolt straight through his temple. It was a shame on his part, because the display of the Imperial base exploding in a fire ball was completely breath taking.

* * *

The planet Feronis Prime, within the Eastern edge of the Ultramar, a planet under attack by an human extremist group known as the Imperium of Man. Standing against the Imperium are a group of aliens and humans known as Osman's Cadre, under the command of Gue'vesa'O Kain Osman. A former Colonel from the Imperium of Man, he and the majority of his regiment committed the ultimate sin of deserting the army to join the Tau's Greater Good.

Under Osman's command, the Tau Empire has started their Fourth and Fifth Sphere expansions, nearly tripling in size and power, and acquiring artifacts that had benefitted their society; case and point, the Tau GeoFronts. They were made by the engineers of the Earth Caste to help transform planets that were deemed uninhabitable and turn them into lush and fertile homes once more.

Their last engagement against the Imperium in the system was a victory, but at a cost. Kain had lost twelve good warriors in the fight today, making the entire casualty roster up to fifty. Fifty casualties did not sound like a lot to most. In fact, given the ferocity of the fighting he had seen, it sounded incredibly low. Back when he was a field officer in the Imperial Guard he had seen and been in conflicts where the daily tolls ran into the thousands and by the ends would hit the high millions. But it was clear from his body language and tone that he was genuinely saddened by the campaign's losses.

"Sir? Are you all right?" A human Earth Caste engineer assisted him his battlesuit.

"I'm alive, and I still have most of my hair." He ran a hand across his face. Where there was once coarse stubbles was now smooth skin. Fortunately they were in the GeoFront, so it would not turn to frost bite in mere seconds. "I suppose that's enough for now."

He took a breath, taking in the warm, humid air. It felt good. It meant he and the remaining of his warriors were alive. The engineer handed him a canteen, and he gracious took a huge gulp from it…. Only to spit it back out.

"What the hell is this stuff?!" He coughed, giving the canteen back.

"We call it Caste Juice, sir. It's a nice blend of the residue from the burst cannon's cool tanks, with Kroot ale, and a few secret ingredients."

"By the Emperor—This stuff will rot your inners." Kain kept coughing up the sharp tasting drink.

"Maybe so, but it's a good pick me up when you need one."

Kain looked past the engineer and saw someone he did not want to deal with right now; Commander Silenthunter.

"Ah hell and damnation," he spoke in a language native to his home world.

Kauyon'Do was a product of his breed. He was from Sa'cre, one of many Tau military centers that produce a very high proportion of exceptionally-disciplined and honorable Fire Warriors, and he acts the way he was taught. Problem is that he has a sense of the dramatics, usually unleashing the full might of his broadsides at the last possible moment. Kain never studied artillery strategies, Tau or other kind, but something in his marrow told him that was something not taught on Sa'cre.

The problem was not Kauyan'Do, it was who was following him; Aun'Saal Ya'ri. A young ethereal who seemed to be of a scholar who would rather be locked up in a study somewhere reading scrolls from the beginning of time rather than one of Farsight's students. He definitely looked the part of an ethereal – the ruling class of Tau – with bright white, red, and gold robes. His staff of office, a delicately ornamented honour blade set upon a tall cane of fio'tak seemed to mimic his emotions. He took small steps as he talked, turning from squad to squad who addressed him, showing as much consideration to the warriors who were defending him.

_"Damn Farsight, did you run out of good Ethereals on T'au? Or do you just like screwing with me?"_

"Gue'vesa'O Osman," Ya'ri spoke in T'au, but was gracious enough to do the human custom of shaking hands. "You're reputation excels you. From what I hear, you single handily turned the tide on the Eastern Front, now the gue'las are in full retreat out of the sector."

"I just lead support sir," Kain responded in T'au, shaking the ethereal's hand. The you aun'saal had no real grip in his hand, in fact all his strength was being used to keep himself from shaking. "my warriors won the day, and Kauyon'Do here saved my life. Without him, you would be talking to a hollow, more hole ridden corpse."

Ya'ri laughed at his comment. Not a full-hearty laugh, but one that showed he got the joke. "You must tell me about your time on the front lines. What was it like fighting your own kind?"

_"As great as the boot in your face if you keep this up!" _Kain never liked young ethereals, they were either too scarred or too boastful for his liking. But Farsight would never let him live it down if he struck one, so he came up a lie. "My ajadet AIs will fill you in, and Kauyon'Do certainly has more interesting stories than I do, but the battle has made me tired and uninteresting. Maybe another time."

Later, in his own quarters, Kain activated a small wooden shrine dedicated to the God Emperor. The tiny statue was carved out of dazzling white holy marble, and his armor and throne were made from pure silver. The box itself was no cheap piece of oak, but hand crafted from Cadia redwood. It cost him half a year of officer pay, but it was worth it.

"Dearest God Emperor," he began to pray. "In your name I fought against my enemies and by your will I and most of my warriors are alive. I also seek forgiveness; for though I fight in your name, I must kill others who do the same. All mighty God-Emperor, please, forgive this humble servant, but I believe I am doing the right thing. Please, grant me a sign so I know you also agree."

The door to his quarters opened, and Kain reflexively pulled out his plasma-pistol from its holster, but lowered it when he saw who it was.

"Whoa! That's a little too kinky even for me," The female Tau said, her hands up in surrender as the business end of the pistol pointed straight at her. "Jhi'kaara reporting for duty, Gue'vesa'O,"

She was red-eyed, pale blue-grey skin, and unpretentiously pretty – for a Tau – with glossy jet-black hair that was held up with two golden pins. There was a Railgun slung across one shoulder, two bonding knives in an X of a sheath worked into her tight-fitting stealth-suit, and on each shapely hip was a EMP pistol. Her bare arms were spiraled with tattoos of T'au, and on her face was a long, jagged scar on her upper jaw on the left side and running down her cheek. That was a an accident caused by a chainsword , and how she got her name Jhi'kaara; the Broken Mirror.

"Guess I lost the match," Kain said as he put his pistol back into the holster. "Then again, you're cheating. A bit much on the hardware, don't you think?"

"A Pathfinder team said that an Imperial ko'miz'sar was executing soldiers and civilians who deserted or sought Tau help. So I was ordered to take him out."

More along the lines of she heard that there was a commissar, and decided to hunt him down before the pathfinders could get back to base. No one in the Tau Empire ever liked commissars, but Jhi'kaara had a personal vendetta against them and the scar to prove it.

"So how did your original mission go?" Kain asked, already knowing the answer. He went to his small bar and pulled out some ale from his home world.

"Simple, easy and efficient," she said as she pulled the pins out of her hair, allowing it to fall freely down her back. "With their commanders dead, artillery destroyed, command center on fire, and your proposition, their chain fell. Most turned tail and ran; others decided to get some payback."

"And you didn't stay and help?" he asked as he poured her a glass.

"Not my job." She stripped herself of her equipment, and left them on the floor. She then sprawled out on Kain's bed.

"Fair enough," He handed her the small glass. "Skoal!"

They clanged glasses and drained their glasses. The potency and intoxicating nature of the drink made them both fuzzy by the third drink, and by the time they finish the bottle they could barely see straight. When Kain finally came out of his drunken coma, he found himself in his bed, completely naked with Jhi'kaara curled up next to him equally naked. He held the small alien closure to him, enjoying how soft her body felt against his, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**So if you can't tell, this is mainly a Gue'vesa piece. There aren't many GV pieces on , so I decided to make my own.**

**On another note, this is a different Tau Empire. Farsight is the head-of-state and the Greater Good is more of a philosophy and way of living rather than an all abiding religion. I wanted to do more of the original idea for the Tau, that they were _"to be altruistic and idealistic, believing heartily in unification as the way forward."_**

**As for other things, Kain Osman is going to be an on running character, the same goes for Jhi'kaara whom readers would know from the short story, _"Out Caste." _I also, kinda, got physical inspiration for her from Xin'Vauk, from DustyGrafix's The Emperor Will be Done series on deviantart.**

**So besides that, just read and enjoy. I take requests, and reviews are always welcomed.**


	2. Dark Eldar

**Hello faithful readers and heretics alike. This is your God-Emperor, The New Mandalord.**

**I know this is a short chapter, but not evey chapter is going to be 7000+ words. **

**I'll die if I continue to do those.**

**Aside from that, I do love the reviews and I do encorage more.**

**I do not own W40K, Games Workshop does.**

* * *

_One of the most grueling campaigns of my career was fighting against the Dark Eldar in the Second Kaurava campaign. I'll skip with the poetics and just tell it as it really happened. During the First Kaurava campaign, Archon Tahril and his Black Hearts Kabal moved faster than any of the other factions had anticipated. They were able to defeat the Alpha Legion on Kaurava VI in the first hour, and take the planet in the first day. _

_The Necron forces were then split, between fighting the Eldar of the Ulthwe Craftworld and their corrupted cousins, not even the Nighlord could slow them down. After burying the tombs underneath the sands, they dealt with Farseer Caerys. Though both she and Tahril were equals, their forces were not. Caerys managed to escape, thank the Emperor, but not with loosing most of her forces. Those that remained suffered a fate worse than death, and Kaurava III soon became Tahril's newest torture garden. _

_After that, he moved on to Kaurava II to face Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter's Waaagh!, Captain Boreala's Blood Ravens, and Shas'O Or'es'Ka. Gorgutz boyz were able to slow them down for about a week, but Kabal eventually rooted them out of their mountain fortress and drove Gorgutz off world. Boreala, who had no experience fighting the Dark Eldar, did his chapters no favors. The Black Hearts were able to slip through his scanners and slaughter him and his guards within a few hours. With them dead, the remaining Blackhearts hunted down the Blood Raven scouts and feasted on their souls. Then they turned to the Nan'yanoi moonbase. Shas'O Or'es'Ka was cocky during the campaign, boosting that no army could penetrate the base's defenses, and that their Or'ka cannon would drive back any attacker, but he was wrong and not only he and his Fire Warriors suffer for it, but it cost them an Ethereal's life._

_Finally came Kaurava I, where the Sisterhood of Battle and the Imperial Guard were butting heads. Both were incredibly stubborn forces, led by equally stubborn leaders. The 252nd Conservator Regiment of the Imperial Guard, the representatives of the star system's original ruler, the Imperium of Man, who had landed on Kaurava I under the newly appointed Imperial Govenor-General Vance Stubbs felt like they had to redeem themselves for loosing almost all four planets. While Battle Sisters of the Order of the Sacred Rose, a sect of the Adepta Sororitas' Orders Militant, led by Carroness Selina Agna, came to cleanse the star system of every last xeno and heretic, even if such a task led to conflict with the other servants of the Emperor already within the system. Both sides were strong, intrenched and would not give an inch to each other until it was too late. Instead of putting meaningless differences aside to fight a common foe, they decided to fight Tahril separately while continuing on fighting one another. In the end, both were annihilated. Though the artillery and heavy armor of the Imperial Guard's central command slowed their advance, not even their powerful Baneblades could stand against Tahril's terror, poison and savage speed his forces crushed the Imperial Guard regiment. The zeal that the Order of the Sacred Rose was famous for, the Marauders of the Dark Heart Kabal fell onto the sisters so quickly that they had no time to become martyrs. Instead they became slaves and playthings of the twisted minded Eldar. It was said that they tortured one lone sister to the point of madness before they left, so she could spread fear into the hearts of others by muttering the horrors she had seen. _

_While Tahril was a brutal and savage leader of his Kabal, he made on critical mistake. He and his Black Hearts stayed in Kaurava. Getting fat and lazy off the souls of those they defeated. Needless to say, it was sort of fun fighting them and watching my warriors avenging Au'Ro'Yr. _

Extract:_ A Gue'Vesa Chronicles: The autobiography of Kain Osman._ Written by Kain Osman, ed. Commissar Jillian von Kisser.

* * *

Karen Invictus had stopped believing she would wake up. The nightmare was real. The monsters that surrounded her were solid, living, breathing, unholy things from the warp; she had found out just how solid when one of them had her and her sisters cuffed when their stronghold fell. The power they possed was terrifying. When one, a civilian, tried to take their leader's head he was flown backwards and smashed into a statue of the Emperor, and crushed beneath it. Existing had been painful ever since, and sleep, when it came at all, was more of a struggle than ever.

She had received beatings before when she would not give into to her master's sick fetishes, but what was a broken rib compared to the things they had done to the Sarah? Kathrina, whose adamant resolve was broken in the first day? Or to the Missionaries'? Or to their Canoness Agna, their leader, who had become the personal plaything of their leader. Best not think about that. Wasn't enough that they forced them to watch as their once great Canoness cave into his sick pleasure, but now it was there every single time she closed her eyes. Most nights, after she and the others had been beaten and kicked until giving into their master's wishes, she would wake up to the screaming of others. They would try to sooth each other as quickly as possible, but their master would always find out in the end, and then that one who was screaming would be given to his Mandrake guards for the rest of the night. They would not be the same in the morning.

Living in such a constant haze of fear, pain and misery, Karen had lost count of the day. How long had it been – a year? A decade? Maybe even more? – since the Dark Eldar had eradicated her and her sisters in the Sama District? She and her sisters were ordered to purge the sector clean of demons, mutants, and heretics alike. That did not last long. When they arrived on Kaurava I, they found themselves fighting against the forces Governor-General Vance Stubbs and his 252 Conservator Regiment. Karen thought that they would give in quickly, but because of their equal zeal they lost fire power, land, resources, and time.

Then one night they descended upon them like maggots on a festering carcass. They cleared Imperial Guard out of the Dussala Precinct, but they used them as bait.

Karen never imagined she would see her Canoness so afraid. Their attack style reminded them of their less corrupted cousins, but their shear savagery and lust in battle told them that they were anything but. What made it worse was that they were crafty, using slaves they took over their campaign to distract them while their main forces desecrated the statues of the of their immortal saint, rendering her mortal, and they more than enjoyed killing her.

It was the first time Karen had ever heard a quaver in her Canoness's voice. Some of the missionaries', who were not the brightest, challenged them, and died horribly for it. Karen had been fighting close by. Their hot blood had splashed over her face, soaking her armor while the rest of her forces tried the best to hold the line. The monsters laughed at that, then stripped them completely naked, fixed explosive collars around their throats, and chained them all together. Minutes later, her and her captured sisters were forced to go through haemonculi torture gardens. Now they had to remain on this Throne-forsaken sector, to live and die as the Kabals's pleasure slaves, and Karen wished now that she and sisters _had_ died back there.

Most of them had already caved into their twisted pleasure or driven mad by the warp.

What was the point of drawing it out like this?

There was no hope of escape. Where would she go? Their settlement was constantly moving, over warp ridden earth. Beyond that, the shifting sands stretched to the wavering horizon in every direction. Her master decided to take his playthings all over the planet to show her that there was no escape. No one was coming for them, and no one was going to save them. The only way they could survive was their complete and utter subjugation.

A furious clash snapped her back to her senses, and she realized that the band had stopped. The barges had joined up with another warlord's band, meaning there was going to be another slave trade. These usually involved watching bloody gladiator matches while the masters proceed in massive orgies and soul consuming.

There was a sharp crack like a gunshot, and a blazing pain lanced across her back. Her brutish slave master – a sadistic monster that was called Tahril – stood over her, speaking in his alien tongue and brandishing a long, leather whip. Unlike most, this whip would not leave any noticeable markings…. But it hurt like hell.

He cracked the whip again.

Drowning under a wave of sudden, intense agony, Karen felt the last of her strength dissolve. Her legs buckled and gave way. She collapsed, much to Tahril's delight. Her tired body hit hard, hot earth. She had fallen of the barge and landed into the sands. Some of the smaller, lesser aliens nearby pointed down from atop a different barge. They laughed and chittered to each other, eyes wide with anticipation.

Tahril bent over her, assessing him, studying her closely with dark, unsympathetic eyes. Was this pathetic human still capable of pleasuring him, or should he trade her for a newer, fresher one?

Essence of the warp seemed to drip off of the monster's finger onto Karen's back. It traced down to her bottom, and then between her legs. She held in a gasp as the alien's talons delved deep into her, and she did her best not to give into him, but it was worthless compared to his magic. She felt a warm wetness spreading down her legs, pooling under her, and causing piercing screams. The mere desire to live overwhelms any sense of shame.

Karen cried. She was cursing herself for giving in. "This is it," she thought, "this is what my life will be."

As a Sister of Battle, she strongly believed in the Imperial Creed. She considered herself to be a Daughter of the Emperor, and even after her capture she continued to pray to him for guidance even when fellow sisters gave in to the power of their masters. So why now did she feel abandoned? Why has her father left her to these Xenos?

Tahril straightened, licking his long fingers clean of her juices; he began to speak in his demon tongue to other monsters nearby, calling them over for a bit of fun, she used the last of her sanity to pray out to her God-Emperor.

"Lord of all Mankind, Beacon in the Darkness, Master of Holy Terra and all the galaxy, let me die quickly, I beg you. Don't let me suffer as the others did. These monsters have caused me to sin, but I have kept the faith. In humble prayer, I ask this of You. Please, do not let your loyal daughter suffer."

She expected no answer. It was desperately alone that made her pray, but what happened next was a striking example of those coincidences that the faithful so often claim as proof of the Divine. Karen Montague could not have known that a different force held positions on Kaurava IV not far away, that fleets were massing in orbit, and that they were preparing for the attack.

Sated from his own turn, Tahril enjoyed watching his own guard use Karen for their own perverted pleasure. Her body fell onto the ground in a heap of sweat covered flesh. She didn't scream when Tahril kicked her over, or whimper when he re-entered her. Her attention was locked on a growing storm.

In it, Karen saw a glorious, stampeding of machines barreling towards them. It was so loud that some of the warriors started to panic rather than prepare for an attack.

Tears of joy rolled down her cheeks.

Could it truly be?

Yes!

The Emperor, her Father, had heard her!

He had heard Karen's prayers, and He had answered it!

"Ave, Imperator," Karen gasped. Graditude, relief, love, contrition: all these feelings and more swept over her. She took a deep lungful of hot, blistering air and with everything she had left, shouted, "Ave, Imperator!"

The storm hit the encampment in a series of divine explosions. Dark Eldar warriors were thrown into the air and the barges were torn through. Tahril summoned his fiercest guard to his side, but they were useless on the hood of the Imperium's jetbikes.

One skidded to a stop in front of them. It was a common Scimitar Pattern Jetbike that was modified to fit a normal person, but it was the person on board that confused Karen. He was a muscular and tanned older man with long unruly black hair and red eyes. His only clothing was a skin tight body-suit that covered his entire torso, pair of black shorts with an orange and red sash covering his right leg, a red headband, and a metal gauntlet covering his left arm. Around his neck was a fang pendant made from polish, black onyx, and on the bodysuit was the symbol of the Tau Empire.

In an instant, all of the emotions Karen had once felt now turned to confusion. Why would the Emperor send the Tau to save them?

Tahril thought differently. He did not like the fact that the Tau had returned, and were using his own tactics against him. He figured that when all of this was done, he would feast on this human's heart like he did to their ethereal.

The human swung the bike around and two burst canons unleashed firy hell upon his badge. It exploded in a beautiful plume of fire and shrapnel, killing another one of Tahril's guards and blowing them back.

Karen's body hurt. The blast caused her body to shake uncontrollably, but it kept her from noticing the shrapnel in her body. It was not deep, fortunately, but trying to move would be painful.

She saw the man get off his bike with a power sabre in hand and heading towards Tahril. His remaining two Incubi were stumbling around, trying to find their feet, but what they found were their internal parts becoming external. They were dead before they knew it.

Tahril, on the other hand, was a harder opponent. He lunged straight at the man, laughing madly as it raised his Agonizer gauntlet high above his head.

As the blades came whistling down towards the man's chest, at lightning speed, the man darted forward into the blow, throwing his left his left arm up at the last moment. Tahril wrist clashed with the golden bracer that shielded his arm. The impact was bone-jarring, but the man weathered it. Thanks to the bracer, his arm did not break. The instant he caught the blow, he rammed his power sabre up into Tahril's unprotected sternum.

The effect was immediate, but less than what the man and Karen had hoped for. Tahril's expression shifted from delinquent glee to abject hate and rage, but he didn't die. Instead, he dropped the huge claws and wrapped its arms around the man, pulling him into a crushing hug. Call it hard to believe, but Tahril's strength was equal to a Ork Warboss, and his anger spiked it. But it was a bad move on his part, the motion forcing the man's sabre deeper inside its body. Howling in pain, Tahril craned its head forward and tried to snap at him.

The man gagged on Tahril's stinking, rotten breath, and reared his head back just in time. Blackened teeth slammed together centimeters from his face. Making use of the distance he'd created to gain momentum, the man rammed his head forward with all of his strength, smashing his forehead straight into Tahril's nose.

As the Dark Eldar reeled backwards, it loosened its grip. The man yanked the hilt of his power sabre hard too the left and right, causing massive internal injuries to his foe. Reeking gore poured out over the man and onto the blistering sands. When Tahril's misshapen face finally went slack, the man pushed free and kicked the body free from his blade.

Karen wanted to scream out in joy.

Here sadistic, insane, demonic master was dead!

So why did her confusion not subside?

The man saw Karen lying, bare naked in the sand not too far away. He pulled a rationed blanket and med kit from his bike.

Karen tried her best to slowly shift away, but malnutrition and the sand grinding into her wounds made that impossible. The man, being as gentle as he could, wrapped her in the blanket first. He then gave her a mild sedative to put her under.

Before she went under, he said, "Relax. I am Kain Osman. You are safe now."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**So I decided to bring in the DoW campaigns into the series, and in one campaign I did have the Dark Eldar winning. I was facinated on how they operated, especially after defeating the Sisters of Battle, so I thought of doing this chapter from one of their points of view.**

**For physical looks, Karen looks like the woman on the cover of Hammer & Anvil. (BTW, who is that person?)**

**Do not hold back those reviews and suggestions.**

**Those = more stories.**


	3. Chaos

**Hey guys, New Mandalord here.**

**It's snowing here in CT, and we are having a blizzard... yay.**

**So I'm workin on another chapter after this one, but it's quite lengthy. Also I need a few segestions for future chapters. Send the through PM please.**

**All flamer will be fed to Nugle for all eternity.**

**I do not own W40K, Game Workshop does.**

* * *

_Ever since our expansion from T'au, we have always feared Mont'au; the Terror. For the longest time, the Etheraels have lead us against that, but it was not until Farsight's Rebellion showed that even the once great Aun'Va could fall to Mont'au and lead the rest of us down that path._

_Taus, as a species, are not affected by the powers of the Warp. This gives us some level of resistance to Warp-based powers affecting the mind, but it offers little, if any, protection against physically-manifested offensive psychic powers. The Fire caste was the first to discover that when they fought against Chaos cultists on Saqqara; now named Sa'Qar. The cult used their psychic powers to either tick invading forces or destroy their minds. Shockingly, they did not last long._

_The problem fighting Chaos is not ferocity, demons, connection to the Warp, or Nightmarish abilities. It is that we have to keep our allied races far away, for their own, and our, protection._

This land was dying, and yet still clung to life.

Chaos forces, the Sanin Traitor Militia, had penetrated the Alpha Hive, breaking down its walls. Hundreds of millions of Guardsmen had given their lives to hold them back, to contain them to the outer zones at least, but the advance was relentless.

It was when the generators had blown, when production had grounded to a halt, that the evacuation order had been signed. The civilians had been lifted out first, those few who could still be reached and who hadn't been slaughtered or turned traitor. Now it was the turn of the Tau Empire on the ground.

Saningrad had been a proud world once. Its mines had been unprecedentedly bountiful, and its refineries and factories the most efficient in the sector. It standard of living, on the highest hives levels, had been good, and even the underhives had enjoyed a far lower than normal attrition rate. Saningrad's subjects had been loyal and happy, with a consequently high rate of population growth. They had been in the process of building their fifteenth hive, and Imperial Guard Command had advanced plans to raise another Guard regiment from their numbers within ten years.

It had taken half that time for Saningrad to be invaded, overrun, lost, and finally abandoned.

Gue'vesa'O Kain Osman stood in what had been a mine overseer's officer on Alpha Hive's eighty-third level. An explosion had ripped through the room recently, and two of its walls had been torn out. Its ceiling hung precariously over him, and every few hours the vibrations from a fresh blast below travelled far enough to make it tremble and threaten to give way.

He would have talk to Kauyon'Do about his positions later.

From this uncertain vantage point he could look out over what remained of the outer zones – at the ebb and flow of battle, at fire and smoke and metal, and the bottle-green lines of his army, marking extent of their progress throughout the hives.

The Tau have made leaps and bounds in close quarter combat, making use of their bonding knives and using power sword technology, but even with that they still needed to really to rely on human and Kroot intervention.

Kain never liked the Kroot. He always saw them as too barbaric of creatures to be used in normal combat, and they would eat POWs before negotiations could be made; leading further conflicts. But for enemies like Chaos they were the perfect combatants.

Another force he used was Stealth Teams. They could slip through the cracks in the Hive, and were invisible to chaos psykers. They could bring down their Space Marines, daemons, and Warband leaders completely undetected until it was too late.

Kain drew his armored greatcoat tighter around his body, tucked his gloved hands into its loose sleeves. He could have sworn that the temperature had dropped another two degrees in the past day. His joints started to ache; a storm was rolling soon and fast. He shivered for a second. Not from the cold, but for what he had to do to unsure victory.

Jhi'kaara had lost track of time.

She was so close to her goal, so close to getting back to her comrades, to Kain, the returning hero. It seemed like days since she had been separated from them, days since she had killed the warband leader, a corrupted Apostate Cardinal, and driven the chaotic forces into fighting each other. Now she was just a few meters away.

A few meters – but it may as well been a few thousand.

It was not in the young Tau's nature to lie still long. Anyway, the grumbling of approaching engines had alerted her to a new danger. The Chaos army was attempting to press forward, most of its foot soldiers passing her without seeing her, but behind them had come the heavy artillery, the tanks and the battle cannons, and she had to act fast to avoid being crushed beneath their wheels.

Kaara had scrambled to his feet, feeling the sting of cold air on her face, expecting to be shot down as soon as she was seen. Instead, surrounded by the enemy, she went unnoticed. She had realized that her uniform, that she stole off a dead Guardsman, was disheveled and torn, coated in grime and blood, and thus there was no real visible difference between her and any number of Traitor Guardsmen on the battlefield. Thinking quickly, she had ripped off the unit's badge to further her illusion, and considered taking a coat with the chaos insignia and rebreathe mask to better hid her face, but the thought of wearing such a thing made her stomach turn and skin crawl. She only pulled off the mask.

She couldn't just stand there, she had realized. She had to do something, make it look like she belonged here, that she was a corrupted human, giving herself time to think, to find an escape.

Casting around, she had seen a pair of cultists bickering over an upset cart. A purloined lascannon, too heavy for them to carry, had spilled from the rickety contraption, and the Kaara had rushed over to help lift it into place. In doing so, she had brushed against the cultist's arm and felt something shifting beneath his cloak. She had caught a glimpse of a slimy black tentacle, and had almost vomited on the spot.

Kaara ached – truly, physically ached – with the driving need to pull out her pistol, to blast these freaks to whatever afterlife they believed in, and she would have done it to… had it not been for the fact that Kain needed her.

She wished she knew how long it had been.

She slipped away from the cultists at the first opportunity, leaving her last grenade in the cannon's barrel. When the weapon fired, the grenade would burst and, Kaara hoped, would trigger a devastating melta explosion. She had made her way to the edge of the battlefield, trying to remain innocuous, finding cover where he could in a deserted, half-demolished building.

She had not counted on running into civilians. Four women and six children were huddled in a dark corner of one of those buildings, somehow overlooked by the culitists that had burnt out their homes and slaughtered their loved ones.

At first they had been an unwelcomed burden, because Kaara would certainly have become a target as soon as she had stepped out into the open with them, and if she revealed that she was a Tau they would've killed her. But, emboldened by the appearance of an Imperial Guardswoman, their savior, the women had told her a way out: a hatchway into the underhive.

And so, Kaara had ended up here, in a tunnel mouth, up to her ankles in filth of a billion departed slum dwellers. This place brought back memories of Oba'rai, where she took her team into the hive's depths and saw how vicious their Kroot ally were, and where she gained her name, and her scar, at the edge of a chainsword. At any instant she expected one of the bodies to reanimate, filled with hate-driven vitality, with some unknown human weapon and take her down.

The women waited some way behind her and tried to keep their children quiet. And the latter that would take them all back up to the surface, back to Kain and her comrades, was just a few meters away… a few, well-guarded, meters away.

It had been a shock to find cultists in the underhive. Fortunately, the women had known their way around, and, so far, they had been able to keep out of sight, though a number of diversions due to blocked tunnels had left Kaara fretting with impatience. Her greatest fear was still one of the bodies reanimating.

Four cultists. She could take them, she thought, especially as their guns were trained on the manhole above them. They were expecting trouble from above, not below. They weren't expecting her. She _could _take them.

And they would raise the alarm, and then more cultists would come running. Would she be able to ferry the women and the children up the ladder and hold their attackers off long enough to follow them?

A more patient hunter might have waited a while longer, might have looked for a better chance, or even another ladder. Not Kaara. She had lost enough time already.

Even though he knew that the fight ahead of her would be difficult, even though she knew that her chances of survival were slim, she drew her Pulse Pistol and she ran to meet it firing. And she did so not just because she felt she had no other choice, but with a grin on her face and a mad laugh erupted from her stomach.

A step gave way beneath Jhi'kaara's foot, and she leapt for the safety rail and pulled herself up. She had started a cascade effect, which demolished the rest of the staircase beneath her, but she had attained the balcony level of the refinery as planned.

She grinned at the memory of those comrades who had thought her mad for eschewing the standard Stealthsuit. The XV25, XV22, and even the XV15 Stealthsuits offered more protection against the cold and enemy fire, but the hostile environmental stealthsuit was much lighter, more flexible, easier to him under clothing, and Jhi'kaara's unencumbered agility, even with these uncomfortable human boots, had just saved her life.

She reached the tall, narrow window – the one towards which a Shas'ui had directed him from outside, below. She settled behind it and used the butt of her long pulse rifle, to knock away the glass. An icy gust of wind blew away the refinery's stuff gloom.

She rested the long, thin barrel of her weapon against the still, and waited.

The battle had only just spread to this part of the hive, and many of the buildings were still standing. She reminded herself to tell Kain this. Send in Kroot carnivore packs to clear out the cultists, and use the underhive to get around the Chaos forces. But, then again, there could be more civilians in hiding, and they would be easy prey for the Kroot. Maybe pathfinder teams would work better. It would take longer, but less civilian casualties.

She focused back into the task at hand, but the cultists were gone.

The cultists knew where she was. A frag grenade arced over the balcony rail and rolled to Kara's feet. She was already running, just ahead of the explosion, which blew out a section of the building's wall. The balcony was mangled, left partially unsupported, trembling and creaking – and, as Jhi'kaara reached on of the remaining set of steps, she found the four Chaos cultists ascending towards her, recognizable by their obscene tattoos.

She brought up her gun, but the cultists were too fast for her, and she had to throw herself onto her stomach to avoid las-fire. She wasn't accustomed to close combat, wasn't built for it. Sure she trained with Kain, but Jhi'kaara spent years in service honing her sneaking and sniping skills. Then, this, her worst nightmare: an enemy that could see her!

A section of mesh beneath her rattled and slid. Feverishly, she pried to the Ethereals it would loose and clamber down through a web of scaffolding. She dropped the six meters to the ground floor level, rolling to absorb the impact of her landing. The vile cultists were up on the teeter balcony, looking for her, and she decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. They saw the incoming grenade, and one of them tried to run, while the other three saw the futility of that course and jumped for it.

Jhi'kaara managed to get off a shot while they were in midair, killing two and wondering another one, who landed awkwardly with a snap of bone. Then the grenade went off and the balcony gave way, bringing two walls down with it. All Jhi'kaara had time to do was to drop to her knees and cover her head with her hands as she was engulfed by a tidal wave of screeching, rendering sound.

When it was all over, as the echoes died down, Jhi'kaara raised his head, and saw that one of the cultists had survived, and was training a Lasgun on her. She closed her eyes, heard the familiar cracking from such a primitive weapon as the cultist pulled the trigger.

The cultist only managed one shot before he died. An electrically charged slug was the last thing the cultist felt before he fell dead on the ground. Jhi'kaara slipped out of the rubble while her hologram disappeared. She motioned for the women and children to come up, but something got her attention

Not too far off though, some refinery doors crashed open, and Kaara pointed her pistol at it. There were five, lightly armored in mottled black breastplates and crimson rubberized fatigues. Their long helmets arched over their shoulders, giving them a vaguely crustacean look, the strangeness heightened by the crystal sensors embedded in their otherwise blank faceplates. Jhi'kaara recognized them easily: pathfinders, _her_ scouts.

All, except for the Shas'ui, were human, and they lowered their weapons when Kaara took off her face mask.

"Shas'el," Shas'ui Kovash saluted. "We came to look for you."

"I know, I'm late," she said. "I've had some trouble with my comms,"

"We've been trying to contact you for the past half hour."

_"No doubt Kain was getting worried,"_ she thought. "I got a little sidetracked. There are women and children back there who desperately need medical attention. See to them."

"Yes, Shas'el," Kovash said.

Later, within the upper hive of the Alpha Hive, Jhi'kaara was watching over the system updates to her stealthsuits. The cold weather of Saningrad have been messing up the suits' internal constructs and data computers, so she wanted them fixed if she was going to go on another stealth mission.

She stood behind a one way window, watching as Mehmet and the earth caste engineers tinker with her suits. The room she was in was dark, quiet and peaceful, just the atmosphere she liked when she was thinking. Her body was wet from the sanitation chamber; even though Chaos could not corrupt Tau did not mean she wanted to smell like one. She a simple but colorful robe that could easily turn heads; it was a thank you present from a high ranking water caste diplomat after saving her merchants from Ork Freebooter raids.

She was lost in thought that she did not notice the door behind her opening up, not until Kain wrapped his arms around her waist.

"You lost a bit of weight, Kaara." Kain said as he rested his head on her shoulder.

"Nice try, but I've gained more than I care to admit."

He placed a hand on her cheek and pulled her closer. "Maybe you're wearing too many clothes."

"I'd show you, but this room is being monitored."

"_Was _being monitored, I changed the main feed. I also polarized the windows, so not even Mehmet can see in here."

"Thoroughly prepared as always," she chuckled as Kain rubbed the stubble of his facial hair on the side of her neck.

"Being a commander has its perks, and this is just one of them."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**So this is a little Chaos piece. Might do more Chaos in the future, using the Chaos Space Marines, depending on which faction I choose next. ****If any one have any seggestions out there send them to me by PM. I'll try to have them writen up for Fridays - no promises - and you will get credit for the idea. **

**On a different note, I figured that Jhi'kaara should have her own chapter(s). I have no idea how she is going to act in "_Fire Caste,_" but from the snippet I read she is not a fan of Imperials. I tried to capture that here, as well as bring up some of her past memories. And yes, if you could not tell, her and Kain are a couple. I figured if humans and xenos are going to be living together, then there is going to be a crossing between the species. I am curious to see what a human-tau baby will look like.**

**Next time will be the Orks.**

**Later.**


	4. Ordo Hereticus Report

**Hey guy, The New Mandlord is back.**

**I'm planning to put two chapters out roughly around the same time. All depending on battery life and if I can keep my eye lids open long enough.**

**So with that said, enjoy.**

* * *

**Ordo Hereticus Subject Report: #006786543456.**

**Name: **Kain Russell Osman

**Alias: **Ice Blood, Wolf Soul, Commander Icefang.

**Gender: **Male

**Date of Birth: **N/A. (All files were destroyed.)

**Planet of Birth: **Tiberium. (Reason why files were destroyed.)

**Regiment: **Formerly: FourthTiberium, "Iron Wolves."

Currently: Fourth T'au Enclave "Osman's Heretics"

**Rank: **Formerly: Colonel

Currently: Gue'vesa'o

**Status:** Alive

**Current whereabouts: **Unknown

Very little is known about Kain Osman's past, though from his medical records – and colorful nicknames – we can say that he came from the upper tundras of Tiberium. Like most faithful servants of the Imperium of Man, he joined the Imperial Guard at the age of eighteen, probably to serve his god-emperor and to get off world. From there he quickly rose up the ranks with every major campaign – the Helios Wars, Jericho Gap, and the Second War of Armageddon. At the rate he was going he would have easily made General and have a regiment of his own, but then it all changed.

It might have started with the extermination of Tiberium. Chaos cults had started to sprout up and cause serious damage, even going as far as assassinating the planetary oveners, also mix in a sizeable Necron tomb re-awakening in the southern waste and the Planetary Defenses too undermanned and underarmed to do anything about it. The Exterminatus seemed the most logical choice. After Tiberium's destruction, her regiments were interrogated for traces of herecy. Colonel Osman showed none at all, and it shocked us all when he, and the remaining Tiberium regiments deserted for the Tau Empire.

Around that time they were patrolling the Eastern Fringe, between Imperium and Tau space. The remaining forces of Tiberium were now under Colonel Osman's command. Their orders were to patrol our borders and rid the galaxy of any threat to the Imperium. Emperor's luck would have it that they successfully capture one of the xeno's heroes, Commander Farsight. It is still unknown what was said or what Farsight did to make him switch the way he did, but he sealed his fate as a heretic. By his command, he ordered the deaths of all of his commissars – which his soldiers eagerly obliged – and left their bodies in an escape pod; mainly to set an example by.

Just like he did with the Imperial Guard, Osman began to make a name for himself within the Tau Empire. He spear headed the fourth and fifth sphere expansions, and taking our most vital worlds away from the Imperium. His crown achievement was taking Macragge and insulting the Ultramarines to the verge of disbanding. No one saw it coming, weakened by constant fighting with Hive Fleet Gorgon and the countless splinter fleets of Behemoth, and spear too far and thin caused by the Black Crusades' left it weak and vulnerable. The entire planet fell under a day; the entire system fell under a week.

To this day we do not know why Osman fights for the Tau. Whether it is for vengeance for what happened to Tiberium, or him believing in their Greater Good, means little to us. What matters now is taking – alive if possible – to face the Emperor's justice.

For the Emperor.

Fyodor Karamazov.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**Before you start flaming me or sending me negative comments, let me explain. You see we have been having some wicked weather in CT, and it is sorta hard to do complete, full length, thought provoking chapters ever Friday when there is no power and I'm stuck shoveling waist deep snow!**

**With that said, I feel like I owe you guys something, so these different Ordo files will be your reward. They'll go around to the different characters and give them some background information.**

**Aside from that, thank you for reading.**


	5. Down Time

**Hey everybody, this is The New Mandalord, your lord and master.**

**It's Friday again, so another chapter!**

**Have fun with it and don't forget to review.**

* * *

After several hours of yet another dreamless sleep, Kain awoke before Kaara did, and was doing his best not to wake her – this time at least. His quarters were a mess, and his head was pounding as he tried to remember what happened the night before. Bottles of empty ale littered around the room, clothing scattered in every direction and pieces of damaged furniture gave him an idea thou1gh of what had transpired. He let out a yawn and made a big stretch as he stood from the bed and moved to the bathroom.

As Jhi'kaara slept in the bed, her silk covered breasts were rising and falling in a rhythmic and intoxicating dance, Kain pushed his impulses deep down inside and turned away from the bed to look for his boxers and trousers. He knew that at any moment Au'lys Devrae or, more likely one of her many lackeys would burst through the front door, and he preferred to be dressed this time.

He eventually found a set of clean drawers hidden beneath the bed skirt. He eased the first drawer out as Kaara turned over in the bed above him. Her leg slipped off the edge, bringing her bright-blue thigh dangerously close to Kain's lips. The lilac perfume she wore wafted across his face, practically pulling him into the warmth of her exposed skin.

"Thorne damn you Kaara!" He shook off the intoxicating effects and closed the drawer. It had been empty. He moved to the next one and tugged on the handle. It didn't budge. He pulled a little harder. Still nothing. Kain braced his foot against the bed and yanked with all his strength. The drawer fell out, almost smacking him in the face. It soared over his head and clattered onto the floor behind him, spilling his leather jacket, shirts and trousers, which had been jammed inside, across the couches far beyond.

Kain slowly glanced up, expecting to see Kaara peering back at him, but instead she just shifted positions on the bed. "That was close," he thought.

He eventually found his boxers on his desk. He noted that it had heavy scratches running across the top and the varnish had mostly flaked off ruined, so it was completely ruined but he didn't care.

"I can always get a new one." He thought. He could, the pay was good enough to buy several with plenty left over, but that desk would suffer the same fate of this one, so he would hold off.

The planet they were on would be considered to be a paradise world by Imperial classification doctrine. It was quiet and exotic to put the weariest souls to rest. It was called Au'tovash by the natives, but his warriors, especially the humans, gave it the nickname of Paradise. It was simple, but well suited. In a way it reminded him of the planet Reth, with its thousands of golden islands scattered across the shallow, warm, transparent sea, the weather was the sheer definition of perfect, and there were enough casinos where anyone with enough credits could become the richest, or poorest, being in the Empire.

Kain was living in a nice size straw roof bungalow near the shore. It was neither over-the-top, nor was it a complete dump. It had a large, soft bed, marble flooring, fully stocked kitchen, automated drones system in case of emergency or attack and local artwork hanging off the wall. The bathroom was just that, a bathroom. Nothing really fancy, just a shower, toilet and sink. Good sized, perfect for the bungalow, but lacked any frills.

He made use of the facilities while Kaara continued to sleep. Assessing himself in the mirror, he ran a hand over his coarse facial hair. "By the Emperor, I could probably strip paint off walls with this. But Kaara does not seem to mind one bit. This on the other hand," he ran his calloused hand through his wild mane. "May have to go."

The automated doors slid open and Kaara slipped in. She was wrapped in a towel, much to Kain's disappointment, but the towel was wrapped so tightly around her body that it mimicked all of her beautiful dips and curves, and she sauntered over to him. Kain had to muster all of his decades of strength not to take her then and there.

"Have you ever heard of knocking?" he asked.

"I have heard of this action, but I find it to be a bit overrated, not to mention completely useless." She came up from behind and rested her chin on her shoulder. Of course she had to extend on the tips of her hooves and he had to squat a bit to do it, but it was worth it.

"So what do you think? Shave? Don't shave?"

"Keep for now. Shave when you start pulling things out of it."

"Deal."

She kissed him on the cheek and headed towards the shower, she bounced ever so nicely as she moved, and she removed the towel Kain was on the verge of breaking. "Still don't fully understand showers though."

"It's better than those disinfecting tanks we have at the bases," Kain said as he ran a razor across his face. He decided to shave it off after all. It at least got his mind off other matters. "And a lot more private."

"True, but it still feels like I'm bathing under a waterfall."

"That's not always a bad thing," Kain chuckled, "except you get control over the heat, and you have a hundred percent chance of a fish not falling on your head."

"That is true," she said, putting her head underneath the lukewarm water. The soap, shampoo, and conditioner dispensers were all the bland sterile smells, but when Kaara lathered up her body it became the most erotic thing Kain had ever seen.

Before her siren voice could tease him anymore, the room's transceiver on his night table began to ring out. Kain wiped his face clean of foam and stray hairs and rushed over to it. No surprise it was one of Au'lys's lackeys, Au'saal Ores.

"_Good afternoon, Gue'vesa'o Xian'Shi,_" the young ethereal said, using the name that the ethereals gave him instead of his own. "_Au'lyrs would like to have a word with you today._"

"On what, exactly?" Kain asked.

"_She did not say, but she said it was quite important_."

"So why didn't she contact me personally, Au'saal?"

"_Au'lyrs is very busy with other dire personal business to do that._"

_"Yes, because apparently lounging out in the sun counts as dire personal business!"_ he thought, clenching his jaw in annoyance. "I'll be right there."

He found a clean and particularly wrinkled shirt and trouser on the couch, but then hesitated. With a deep sigh, he was back with his beautiful lathered Tau.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**So I descided to make this for the most made-up holiday in history, St. Valentine Day, but I kinda got lazy so it's coming out this week. Now this barely gets over the 1000 word mark, so sorry about it being so short.**

**Also my machine has been crashing quite often lately. So there are a few new edit changes**

**So til next week.**


	6. Orks

**Hey guys, the New Mandalord here.**

**It's another Friday, so that means another new chapter.**

**Hope you like this one, because it took me two weeks to finish. (DAMN YOU LIFE!)**

**I don't own anything, minus Kain, W40K is owned by Games Workshop.**

**So please read, enjoy, and review.**

* * *

_Orks had plagued every part of this fair and great Galaxy. From the Eastern Fringe, all the way to the Inter-Galaxtic Void. They are savage, warlike, and crude, but ironically they are the most successful species in the whole galaxy! Even outnumbering possibly every other intelligent race, even humans! (The one exception might be Tyranids, but that's not important right now.)Fortunately they enjoy killing each other far more then getting a Waah! together to raid some planet._

_From my time spent with the Impiral Guard, I have face off against more Warbosses than Commissar Yarrick, and I have the trophies – and scars – to prove it!_

_The worst had to be Goltoof da Treasa'unter (great name), an Ork Freebooter that harassed the Tau frontier worlds for almost a century. He made a name of himself during the Tau Civil War, when he would pray on shipping lanes and steal everything. It was said that he had Battlekroozers made out of solid gold, and harems so large that it would make Imperial Navy Officers and Planetary Governors jealous. But when the war was over, and Farsight in control, we began to take down his empire. He wasn't too happy about that._

_The only good thing I could say about the beast, without him Jhi'Kaara and I would have never met._

Exerpt from Kain Osman's private Journal.

* * *

Cymbals and drums sounded tinny and distant in the thin, cold air as they welcomed him to the new world. Looking down from the top of the ramp, the shuttle's only passenger seemed surprised to find any kind of welcoming committee, even one as small as this one, awaiting him. High overhead, twin suns lit the scene with a fierce glare but little warmth; what little heat there was had been ripped away by a chilling breeze filled with fine, irritating ash.

It did not bother Kain in the slightest, he was originally from a cold planet so ice flowed from his very veins, and he served on worse worlds than this. A little bit of ash was not going to send him running back to T'au.

Gentle ripples of slate-grey ash marked the edge of the landing pad and marched off towards the foreshortened horizon with monotonous discipline. A small collection of domes, blocks and stubby spires in the mid-distance constituted the apparent entirety of Virrauka's one and only colony, the handful of off-white shapes looking lonely and isolate on the too-wide canvas of an empty world.

_"Am I being punished? Or is Farsight screwing with me?" _He beheld the tall, slender, shapely profile of the colony leader at the bottom of the ramp. _"Yep, screwing with me."_

One of the cymbal players, a wiry-looking fellow with blue facial markings, broke away from the small crowd and hurried up the ramp."

"Please to be meeting with our lady, great warrior, I, unworthy associated, will conduct you hence if willing?"

"Fine by me, I…" But the low ranking associate was already backing away and gesturing as if to draw Kain by an invisible string. The bemused Kain followed a long, his hard and worn leather boots clanked down the ramp and onto the first true ground he had touched in weeks of travel.

"To make introductions," the associate said gesturing to Kain and colony leader in turn. "This great warrior is Gue'vesa'O Kain Russell Osman. This is Po'O Yis'ten."

Po'O Yis'ten was undoubtedly one of greatest merchants in the water caste. With her silver tongue more planets had given into the Empire rather than a long and bloody war, and with her intervention Farsight's Enclave was able to keep the civil war a secret to the rest of the galaxy. She wore the expecteded flamboyant gown and jewels of any high ranking official of the water caste, but her robe was a few sizes too big for her. Whether this was intentional or not would bicker in Kain's head for years to come, but now it was an embarrassing distraction.

Kain gave a minor nod to her, "Yis'ten, I am flattered that you came to meet me. You are more beautiful than the stories they tell."

Even for a Tau, Kain had to admit the Yis'ten was quite beautiful. Like most Tau in the water caste she was tall and slender, with the common Y-shaped marking on her forehead, to show she was a female, which led down to the delicate air slights that made up her nose. Long braided, black hair that went past her waist, with locks of hair that frame her face down to her chin. But her most legendary, and most obvious, trait was her body - and what a body! It was no surprise she ran most of the water caste.

"Nonsense, Kain Osman, it was only seeming for me to be present in order to make the proper acquaintance and welcome you to Virruaka. My little fortress in the stars."

"We have a lot to discuss," Kain said politely, "and I hope we can work together to better protect the frontier colonies."

There were earth caste engineers there, and they were not too happy by Kain's words. They gave a non-committal grunt at the prospect, eliciting the shadow of a frown on Kain's face. The engineers smoothly got back whatever they were originally doing.

"Of course those are Prime Minister Farsght's words, not mine." Kain turned back to Yis'ten.

"Shovah can be a tease at times, but I understand his concern. Just tell him to send me flowers next time."

"I'll run it past him."

"Please," she motioned towards one of the domes. "You must be tired and hungry from your trip. Refreshments are being served inside."

Kain refused to be immediately drawn after them, addressing a question to temptress.

"And where are the warriors I am to command? I am surprised to find that they have left greetings, welcome as they are, to other, while absenting themselves."

Yis'ten answered directly, cutting across the associate platitudes even as they began.

"To be honest, the fire and water caste do not see eye to eye. Surprising, I know, but the Shas'la are sulking in their barracks after I refused permission to bring weapons along to a meeting with a gue'la governor. They said that they would rather be naked than suffer the shame at being disarmed at their first encounter with their Gue'vesa'O!"

"Any good looking in the group?" Kain asked.

"A few, mainly for me, but I never judged you as enjoying my species."

"I like the Tau, I'm not attracted to them – with the exception of you. I just asked because I do not want to claw my eyes out when I see a nude one."

"Neither do I," she chuckled. "But this is a world absent of life, minus us. Just whom could they possibly shoot at?"

Kain understood her reasoning. For a temptress, Yis'ten was quite intelligent. Green soldiers were always the worst to deal with. They were pumped filled with piss and vinegar, always itching for a fight, and more gung-ho than a pack of ork boyz. They were more of a threat to themselves than they were to whatever enemy they might be put up against. Kain truly had his work cut out for him.

* * *

"What's that supposed to be?"

"It's a planet, boss, the mekboss wants to go there."

Ork Freebooter Kaptin Goltoof da Tresa'unter leaned forward, peering down at the wiry little gretchin before his throne. The gretchin quaked, the big shard of glass in its hands quivering and making the dirty yellow-brown ball on its surface bounce around uncertainly.

"The mekboss, eh?" Goltoof rumbled with a voice like stone tumbling down a metal shaft. "Well, I'm the Kaptin and I say where we go!"

Goltoof was a Kaptin out of his prime. He was once the most feared Freebooter on the Eastern Fringe. He had raiding parties that would pray on Space Marine worlds, and were large enough to eclipse even the mightiest Waaghs! But now, with the Tau Empire on the rebound, he was constantly on the run, and there was no profit to make there.

"The mekboss said the ships are gonna break if we don't go!"

Goltoof paused at that. Glaring gold eyes pierced the quivering gretchin with new interest.

"What did you just say?"

The gretchin's healthy green pallor had gained a distinctly whitish cast, the world in the viewing glass oscillated tightly back and forth in its grip.

"The mekboss said to tell you we got too many holes. Some are so big the boys are falling out and all the… breathy stuff is leakin' out."

Goltoof thrust his mighty jaw out truculently. "Breathy stuff? That's air, you stupid little grot!"

"Y-yes boss!"

"So we're gonna be stuck there?" Goltoof's three meter tall form seemed to sag at the prospect. No more reaving across the stars for him and his bloodthirsty crew of freebooters; they would be stuck on one stinking planet with no way off it and nothing to fight but each other.

"Bo - boss! The mekboss says there's metal on this world. We can fix the holes an' keep goin!"

Goltoof seemed to swell up visibly at the prospect. He grabbed the viewing glass from the gretchin with a gnarled claw as big as its torso and glared at it with a rapacious gleam in his eyes. The gretchin failed to relinquish its grip quickly enough and ended up dangling from Goltoof's fist by one arm.

"Anything to kill?" Goltoof demanded.

"No boss," the grot squeaked apologetically, "leastways nothing good. Tau water boys use that planet."

"So plenty of looting!" Goltoof gave out a loud laugh.

"And the mekboss said that their leader lady, Yis'ten, is down there." The gretchin got a bit cockier with its kaptin's change in behavior.

"That's even better!" He yelled with glee. "Call up the boys and Mr. Wrench'Ead! It's time for lootin'!"

* * *

Kain found the warriors beneath his command awaiting him at their barracks, just as Yis'ten had said. The warriors stood in ranks inside the quadrangle formed between their quarters, garages and armory. Each was in full armor; the jointed plates given them an insectile quality in the harsh glare of the twin blue suns. They held their pulse rifles upright before them, long-barrelled firing chambers pointing rigidly at the skies. Small mounds of windblown ash reaching up to their ankles showed they had been silently awaiting him for quite some time. Kain dropped his single carry bag and power saber with an audible clank before blowing out his cheeks in a long-suffering sigh.

"And just what is the meaning of this?" he shouted in a parade ground bark very different tone he had used with Yis'ten and the engineers. A fire warrior with the stripes of a Shas'ui, a sergeant, took a step forward and replied.

"It is my responsibility, Gue'vesa'O," the Shas'ui said, the voice distorted by their audio pickup of their enclosed helmet. "Any punishment is mine, and mine alone."

A murmur of discontent rippled out behind the Shas'ui as they spoke and the forest of pulse swayed slightly in response. Kain respected the Shas'ui's honor, but raised a hand to silence them.

"Am I led to believe that all of you refused to leave your barracks unarmed? On the backwards idea that it would offend you in my eyes not to greet me as warriors?"

"The Po'o believes that with no enemies present our weapons are only a danger to ourselves and her business, Gue'vesa'O," The Shas'ui replied cautiously.

"And she would be right!" Kain snapped. "The water caste is the Empire's merchants, diplomats and administrators! They are responsible for maintaining effective interaction between the castes, as well as communicating with and supervising the integration of alien species into the Tau Empire. As the fire caste, you are here to protect and observe them, because they are the ones keeping you from early graves!"

"But the ambassador believes us too ill-trained and unreliable to bear arms!"

"Enough! Put down your weapons at once!" Kain barked. As one, the assembled fire warriors placed their rifles on the ground. "Now take off your armor. You heard me, every piece!"

Kain watched while the warriors more hesitantly unclipped shoulder guards and breastplates, thigh pieces and curved helmets. They quickly lost their uniformity and were revealed as a selection of males and females of a young age, a few probably even closer to their first trial by fire. The variety of their physiognomy showed that they hailed from a variety of different septs. There were some dark faces from Vior'la that were eyeing him with approval, a gaggle of pallid D'yanoi that looked confused, several Sa'ceans that obeyed quickly and efficiently without hesitation, handful from Tash'var who tried to act proud of current situation, and a few from Au'taal who seemed to be completely relaxed – even if they were shivering in their rubberized fatigues.

The one that surprised him the most was the Shas'ui, who proved to be an attractive female with a more fit body of T'au and a scar on her face, she also had red hair that was tied into a bun and held with golden pins. She went the extra yard, stripping out of her armor and rubberized fatigues and folded them into a neat pile right next to her. She covered her fairly ample breasts with one arm, but stood at complete attention – even if she was shivering with every gust of wind.

Kain had to avert his eyes because so many perverse thoughts of how to punish her were floofing his mind. He walked over to the Shas'ui's neat little pile of equipment and kicked it over.

"These… objects do not make you warriors!" He shouted into her face. "The will… the ability to fight, to be a warrior, does not reside in your weapons, nor inside you armor unless you bring it there yourself! The warrior begins within, a warrior is one who still fights with whatever they have and with nothing at all if they must!"

Kain had their attention now, every eye was on him and he saw the unconscious flaring of nasal slits in approval on all of the faces. He bent down and drew his saber from the sheath and shoved the blade into the ground. The sheath was made from ironwood, hard enough to crack open an Ork Nob's skull like an egg, and was as long as his leg. He then tossed two fighting sticks from his carrying bag, made from the same material and as thick as his arm, and tossed them before them.

"Now… who among you is enough of a warrior to fight me for the right to put your armor back on?"

Two days later, a Devilfish personnel carrier skimmed over low dunes with all the smooth agility of its namesake, its graceful lines speeding across the gritty ash. Inside, Kain watched the external monitors with interest, nothing the tall double plume of dust snaking in their wake that would be visible for miles. His body ached a bit from the bruises, but they were nothing compared to what the other five warriors felt.

He'd beaten all of them, one by one, even though it had taken all night and most of the next day. The smarter ones had waited until he was tired before taking their chances, managing to get a few telling strikes on him. Afterwards, Kain had fought them in pairs in groups to allow them a little revenge. Not bad, but some of them really were ill-trained and all of them were very inexperienced.

More importantly, they were now thinking of themselves as warriors again, instead of scolded children.

The only one who seemed to have any combat experience was the Shas'ui. She knew how to fight, and because she was completely naked during the fight she knew how to slightly distract him. He chuckled, causing his bruised ribs to ache. He read her file on his trip to the planet, or at least the parts the censors allowed him to read. Shas'ui Jhi'kaara started off as a Pathfinder, the Tau scouts, during the Second Expansion and in the jungles of the Dolorosa Coil. While her combat profile told him she was a capable warrior with true leader potential, but her psych profile told him something completely different.

He turned to Jhi'kaara, raising his voice above the whine of the Devilfish's ducted turbines.

"So you're telling me no other living organisms is on this planet?"

"Nothing at all, not a plant, not an animal." Jhi'kaara's response were clipped and coolly professional but Kain could tell she was barely holding her excitement in check. Yis'ten, in her water caste fashion, had a entire personal arsenal of Devilfish transports, Sky Ray, and Hammerhead gunships

"Seems like an odd place to set up shop. Even for the water caste."

"But the colony has its purpose. The land is quite fertile, if it wasn't for the ash, and there are plenty of mines." She prodded. "That is something of an exaggeration, Gue'vesa'o, the main colony is her in the Orgap Highlands. The Fio have established many other facilities but there all small, highly automated and widely dispersed."

"Their purpose?"

"Metal extraction and purification. Underneath most of this ash are large veins of precious metals, and the ash we are going over bear huge quantities of metallic oxides mixed with silica and carbon. The Fio believes it to be a mixer over what was at the planet's core and the detritus of a civilization that once covered this planet."

Kain sparked up with interest. "My briefing material said nothing about this, perhaps you jest, Shas'ui?"

Jhi'kaara gestured at the grey dunes sliding past the monitors, "No, Gue'vesa'o, I do not jest. The ash you see out there are compounds of metal and other elements completely impervious to decay. The Fio don't know whether the gue'la – sorry humans – or something more ancient lived here, certainly a long time ago." She paused. "Permission to ask a question, Gue'vesa'o?"

"Granted."

"Your name – Gue'vesa'o Kain Russell Osman. I am aware that your tidal means "human helper," but you have to be a skillful warrior to achieve the tidal of 'o.' You must have passed at least three trials by fire to achieve such a rank…"

"I'm sure you have a question in there somewhere, Shas'ui. So spit it out."

"It's just…. Why would the Shas'ar'tol send someone like you to a place like this? Surely you would do more good in an active conflict region than being crèche supervisor in some forgotten outpost for the water caste."

"I believe it is because O'Shovah has a sick sense of humor and enjoys seeing me in pain." Kain replied. "But to be honest, I have no idea why he sent me out here, maybe to whip you greens into shape. The God-Emperor works in mysterious ways, who am I to question Him?"

Jhi'kaara looked at him in frank disbelief, and seemed to be trying to deduce just what her Gue'vesa'o had just said. She opened her mouth to ask another, probably even more impertinent, question when the Devilfish lurched suddenly, banking sharply to one side. The fire warriors were thrown against their restraining harnesses with a chorus of suppressed groans. On the monitor, Kain caught a glimpse of a blazing darkness amid the dunes that rapidly vanished down one side of the personnel carrier.

"I thought the volcanoes were extinct." Kain said, groaning at the pain in his ribs.

"There shouldn't."

The Devilfish's turbines ran quiet, and all motion ceased as the transport's reflective panels shimmered and camouflaged it with the rest of the grey wasteland. Jhi'kaara took point, followed by the five other fire warriors, and then Kain.

The grey ash ran an entire spectrum of colors, going from white to orange and then red, glowed within the fissure and it quickly cooled, causing a thin layer of metal to form. One of the braver fire warriors, a female from Sa'cean, were the first to venture onto the metallic skin. To Kain's surprise the layer did not break under the combined weight of Tau, armor and gear. Even when he jumped on it, it did not break or dent.

"Gue'vesa'o," Jhi'kaara asked, "What could've caused this?"

"I have a theory," he said as he slammed a power cartridge into the back. "I just hope that I'm wrong."

They walked in an semi organized manner. Jhi'kaara at point, and two inline of two in the middle, but the only factor keeping it disorganized was their Gue'vesa'o. He would shift from one point in the line to the other, always checked his back and sides, and had his finger firmly glued on the trigger. Jhi'kaara was about to ask him what was wrong, but before she could he called for a complete stop.

"What's wrong?"

"Wait here."

Kain crept on ahead, carefully placing one foot at a time on the metallic ground. The ground seemed to go back into the ash, giving Kain some adequate cover. Taking a quick peak, his heart momentarily stopped.

It was what he feared, an Ork Rok.

Kain had fought the damned beasts before. Sometimes his regiment fought them off world, other times he escaped by the skins of his teeth. The first time he laid eyes on one he was a private and lost complete control of his bladder, by the time the Third War of Armageddon rolled around he already had more necklaces made from their teeth he cared to admit. All of them he had left behind when he defected, so right now he had to every instinct to leap over the dune, guns blazing, and give into his sick addition once more.

The thing that stopped him was the size of the force. Kain was a capable warrior, no doubt, but he could not take on over a dozen loota boyz, five flash gitz Nobs armed to the teeth with their high-caliber snazzguns, and more gretchins than he could count. A few frak grenades could kill the boyz, and send the gretchins into panic, but then he had to deal with the flash gitz. Nobs were a challenge alone, but flash gitz were another story. For starters they loved their snazzguns, and loved using them. Not to mention there were five of them, each with their own deadly, custom weapons of mass destruction. One veteran commander with a power sabre and a pulse rifle would not be enough, but a squad of anxious fire warriors might.

He turned and headed back to his squad. Jhi'kaara was cleaning out the ash of her Railgun while the other five were communicating via private channels. All of them came to attention when they saw their gue'vesa'o.

"We have a slight ork infestation." Kain said. "A dozen boys, five nobs and a whole lot gretchins in total. First question, what do we do?"

"Take them head on, gue'vesa'o." said a recruit from Vior'la.

"That is a good idea – if you want a quick and very painful death."

"Head back to the outpost and regroup. Warn the colony." Said a recruit from Au'taal.

"The better and more logical option, Shas'la, but Orks don't exactly go by our schedule and will hunt us down before we ever make it back."

"We can out flank them," Jhi'kaara said. "Get around them and use the Devilfish's burst cannons for support."

"You are on the right path, Shas'ui, but you are forgetting one tiny detail about the creatures. They fight on who is the strongest of the pack, usually going boss, nob, boy, and then gretchin. I didn't see any warbosses, so we have to take out the Nobs to have the pack cave in on itself. It will save us time, ammo, and manpower. You," he pointed at the tau from Au'taal. "Get the Devilfish to swing around the creator. Tell the pilot to stay low and keep the jets quite, then open fire when he sees the signal. You'll know what it is, and I expect you to keep any that slip by away. Everyone else is with me."

The Au'taal recruit did as he was told headed back to the transport. The others followed him. Apart of Kain could tell what they were thinking, that he was crazy or they should turn and run, but he did not care. They followed orders and that was all he needed.

They surrounded the mouth of the creator, each at two arm's length apart from one another. That was when they got a good look at the feral beasts. The boys had ditched their deffguns in favor of their choppas – huge pieces are sharp, jagged metal – and began fighting each other in a tournament like fashion, and once there was dozen was now half that number. The flash gitz, on the other hand, still kept their number at five, but now they were picking on the gretchins. Shouting at them in their guttural language because the weapons on the rok would not work, and when the imps tried to explain the Nobs would throw them up and use them for target practice.

Kain thought for a moment to let this continue. Maybe if he was luck they would kill themselves off, but the chances of that were slim to non-existent. He saw a small cloud of ash kick up and resettle; the Devilfish was in place and awaiting orders. Using a private channel within his helmet, he gave his fire warriors their orders.

"Us your photon grenades to stun the boys, then aim for the Nobs."

Kain counted down on his fingers, and when he hit one his warriors primed their grenades and threw them over the embankment. All of them landed in soft run-off beds, making them invisible to the greenskins close by, but was able to attract the attention of the sharped ear gretchins. The grenades exploded one at a time, mere milliseconds apart from each other, kicking up electrically charged ash and shrapnel up into the Orks.

Several gretchins and two orks were killed in the explosion, and one lost an arm caused by being distracted by the explosions and losing it to a choppa strike. Kain and his fire warriors then began to open fire upon the greenskins. The devilfish's burst cannons followed suit, and plums of plasma encased the feral beasts in cocoons of instant death.

Doing as they were told, Kain's fire warriors fired upon the nobs. The only problem was that the beasts were now firing back. Huge chunks of the metal ground shattered, causing a few of the tau to tumble down into the creator with them.

Two of them, the recruit from Vior'la and Sa'crean, were unfornate enough to be sucked into the torrent of rush ash and metal, and when they dug themsevels out they found themselves on the business end of a nob's choppa. They were still burried and scrambling to get out. Try to get back over the ridge or find a good place to to make cover, anything was a better option than being gored by a greenskin brute.

The nob lifted its massive green arm, muscles and veins bulging as it gripped its choppa harder, and swung down. The two embraced each other and closed their eyes, preparing for the worst. It was probably for the best, because if they kept them open they would have seen the brute's arm being chopped off by a power saber and then being shot in the head. When they opened their eyes, they found their gue'vesa'o standing over a dead nob and pulling out it's teeth.

The nob's breath smelled was the rancid smell of vomit as Kain dug arounf in it's mouth for the best teeth. Most of them were greyish-yellow and rotten, only a few were the white he wanted, and he managed to get a few to start off with.

"Gue'vesa'o," Jhi'kaara addressed him. "What are you doing?"

"Giving into a sick habit, Shas'ui," he said as he examined the jagged fangs. "How are the Shas'las'?"

"Shaken, and covered witth ash, but fine. My question still stands though."

"I'm collecting war trophies," he said, "Orks have taken so many of my men, so I figured this is me getting even."

"That's barbaric!"

"That's war." Kain turned to his other fire warriors. "Toss a few grenades into the rok. I think I saw some gretchins dive back in."

His Shas'las' follewed his orders and tossed them into the rok, blowing out fire, ash and a few unfortunate gretchins.

Fire and iron thundered out of the void with twisting, belching black trails chasing at its back. One, three, then three fiery meteors were vomited from the sullen skies, the clouds peeled back in ragged taters where the smoking lances pierced them from above. Distance made churning smoke and fire trails seem absurdly slow-moving as their burning tips crawled arcoss the sky.

Kain watched the apocalptic sight with nothing but hate and vile boiling in his soul. From their direction told him that they were heading towards the unmanned refineries to the south.

_"At least they're not heading towards the colony... yet." _He sighed. "Everyone, get back onto the devilfish. Tell the pilot to get every hunting team back to the colony. Also get Yis'ten on, I need to have a word with her."

* * *

Goltoof mashed random buttons on the arm of his throne until a frightening-sounding grot voice squeaked from the speaker gril response.

"All of the roks are away boss, what now?"

"Tell the flyboys it's time to drop and give'em a boot up the arse from me," Goltoof growled happily. With easy targets to kill on this planet, the landing was going to be the most fun part and he was going to squeeze out every bit of it. Distant clunks reverberated through the hull as landers are flyers dropped away from the giant ship with all the aplomb of baby chicks falling out of a large, ugly nest.

A chaotic selection of viewscreens flickered into life around the bridge, half exploding in showers of sparks before immediately going dead. Of the remainder, some only showed static, but others showed the juddering, leaping views from the nose of the ork flyers. Boring-looking ash dunes and petrified earth bounced around on the working screens for a few seconds before one caught a ile of dead orks around a burnt rok. Goltoof's attention snapped to the screen and his impressively golden-tusked jaw champed convulsively.

"Looks like they have their fire boys!" Goltoof roared, jabbing one clawed finger at the flickering image. "Get us down there! _NOW_!"

* * *

The desert horizon that had once been so crisp and clear was smudged with the plumes of smoke the roks left. Po'o Yis'ten had been busy destroying anything that the orks could use to make larger war party, as well as get every ship ready for evacuation. Dealing with her own cast was simple enough, it was the earth caste overseer that was giving her problems.

"Mehmet, I must protest!" She snapped as she chased after the human overseer. His drones were buzzing around his workshop like angry hornets, and his stout staff of engineers were getting weapons ready instead of destroying them like she ordered.

"Against what?" he asked. "Defending the colony?"

"Let me make this clear to you, Fio'ui." She said. "We are going against ork feebooters, and there are a lot more of them then there are of us. Our fire warriors are too few in numbers to hold them back, and we need to get the civilians off planet."

"Fine, go ahead and do that," Mehmet said, still working on an energy core. "But I ordered the engineers to stay until colonel Osman hasd returned."

Yis'ten had dealt with the earth caste before, and even her years of diplomacy could not break through their stubborness. But of all the blunt, bullheaded, tinkering, plotting, callouse, pragmatic, and down right stubborn technician she had dealt with Mehmet was the worst!

He was an enginseer from Mars, the Imperium's main forge worlds, who defacted around the same time gue'vesa'o Osman did. He always had a facination with alien technology, but because of the cults and the inquisition acts such as that were completely outlawed by the Imperial Creed. So, like most, when he saw his chance to leave he took it. Now all he had been doing was spending millions of her caste credits on projects that she, on all accounts, were restricted of accessing.

Before she could say anything to the human, a earh caste engineer came up to her with a communicator on a secure channel. "Po'o," said the stout engineer, "it's gue'vesa'o Osman."

"Perfect timing," Mehmet said. "Tell him to come down here when, and if, he gets here."

* * *

_"How far down are they taking me?"_ Kain had confined to a feight elevator for fifteen or more minutes, and the entire time it had been rapidly descending into the depths of Virruaka.

The last place Kain wanted to be was in another confined space, unable to do anything to help his warriors. Only two of the three devilfishes returned, one was severly damaged, and he had heard nothing from the hammerhead teams. Fortunately the skyrays that had stayed behind for training, where now holding the green tide back. But without reenforcements, a relentless foe, and their commander several hundred meters underground, it was only a matter of time until the line broke and every one above ground would be slaughtered.

The doors finally slid open, and they emerged in what appeared to be a well-lit hangar. The far end had a series of dismantled machines and battlesuits.

Three engineers and at least a dozen AI driven droids were busy in the center of the room. Kain had dealt with drones before - between one or four at a time. The technicians had once him that there were technical reasons why only a few earth caste droids could be at the same place at the same time, but they were buzzing around the room, doing whatever the engineers told them to.

Yis'ten cleared her throat. The technicians turned and the drones stopped.

Kain had been so focused on the droids that he had not noticed what they were working on. It was a fully functional battlesuit, but it was different in certain ways. The design looked like the XV89 Crisis Battlesuits, but it seemed more humanlike. It was bigger than any of the standard battlesuits, and the build had more of a human physic.

It was painted in his Enclave's colors - black over-coat with a crimson red under - and had the three rings planted on the "chest" area.

"The XV95 Hellion Battlesuit," Fio'ui Mehmet said. He snapped his metal fingers and an explosion of holographic schematics of the armor appeared next to him.

"Even though we had to use parts from the XV8, this is an improvement to the XV9's. The armor's shell is a multiple alloy of remarkable strength thanks to this planet's rescorces. We - I - recently added a refractive coating to dispense incoming energy weapon attacks - to counter any deffguns up there." He pointed inside the schematic. "Inside the battlesuit is a gel-filled layer to regulate temperature; this layer can reactively change in density."

"Is that supposed to help with control?" Kain asked.

"Nope. It's meant to help your life expensity. Against the skin of the operator - you - there is a moisture-absorbing cloth suit, and biomonitors that constantly adjust the compartment's temperature and fit. There is also an onboard computer that interfaces with your brainwaves." a small fissure rocked the bunker. If an explosion like that could do that, Kain hated what was happening up there. "Now I know that time is not on our side, so if you do not mind, Colonel?"

Mehmet gestured and the schematics collapsed and the drones started to circle Kain. They stripped him of his armor, and only left him in the flexiable padding of the under-layer. Mehmet gestured him into the opened chest cavity, and Kain chose to trust the enginseer.

The hull closed and a dark-red light lit the small space inside. It felt like a coffin inside the machine, a comfortable coffin, but a coffin none of the less. It already began to become humid and uncomfortable in there when Mehmet's voice came on the comms. "_I found away for humans to operate the suits, without injecting needles into your brain. The only problem is, I have to drown you._"

The compartment stared to gel-like liquid, causing Kain to struggle to get out. "_Relax, colonel, this is meant to help you to become one with the suit. Once your lungs are filled with the gel, it'll allow your blood to be oxygenated directly. You'll get used to it - probably. Still working on the recipy."_

Kain gasped, his lungs needed clean air, fortunately gel did as Mehmet told him. A entire spectrum of colors flashed before his eyes until it finally forcused in on the environment arond him. Now he felt like he was floating above the ground. He flexed his hand and felt his saw the machine's hand flexing in and out.

"_Nice to see your natural reflexes are working. Now for your weapons._" A team of drones and technicians helped apply weapons onto his left arm and back. "_I'm giving you an prototype Iridium shield. It'll protect you from heavy fire, but it'll also give you a powerful kinectic pulse - just incase those greenskins get too close. On your back is are anti-infrantry missile pods - simple and too the point. But I saved the best for last."_

A heavy, metal container opened, revieling something Kain really know how to use. It was based off of Commander Farsight's _Dawn Blade_, but crafted to mimic his power saber. Grabbing a hold of it, the weapon seemed to hum with life, and it sparked with trails of lightning when he swung it around. It was perfect.

Another tremour, bigger than the last one, shook the entire facility.

"Damn the beasts," Yis'ten cursed. "they are ruining my fortress. Mehmet, is there any way to quickly get him above ground?"

"Yep," he smiled like a cat. "There are plenty of launch pads down here."

"Then get him up there! Also, get your teams to the evac-sight."

"Do you not trust your investment?"

"I trust Osman with my life," Yis'ten said, "but I have a purpose to serve to the remaining caste on my planet, and I rather not sully a reputation I worked so hard for."

* * *

Goltoof was having a good plunder and an even better slaughter.

He already collected enough metal and riches to fix his ship up a thousand times over, but now he and his boyz could crush their boredom using the Tau defenders to do it. Their gunships and missile batteries were a pain to deal with, but without any pesky battlesuits or reenforcements to help them, his stormboys easily stormed them.

Now he wanted to get some slaves - mainly Yis'ten. She would be the crown jewel in his new harem, and just thinking of the things he would do to her made his blood run hotter and his strength increase by tenfold. What the beast did not expect was the ground opening up below him and something shooting out. At first he thought it was a defense missile as it flew across the ash sky and landed right in the middle of his boyz, destroying some unexpecting boyz, two killa kans, and Mr. Wrench'Ead in the process. So it was a mixed blessing .

Goltoof and his boyz had no idea what landed on their side, but when it started to move and speak, the ork knew whom it was. "Hello, Goltoof."

"Osman!" the beast growled in a voice so deep and vissious that it could be felt inside of the suit. "I should have guessed you were on this planet."

"The feeling is mutual, ugly." In his head's-up display, Kain could see positions where his warriors were holding back the greentide. Jhi'kaara had proven herself to be a fine commander, managing to hold the beasts back with such little support. If he could kill this incoriable creature, then the tide would turn on itself and it would be easy hunting from there. "I'll give you one chanse to surrender, and I promise you - your deaths will be quick."

The anger on Goltoof's face bubbled and boiled over into a shout so powerful that it caused the deaths of at least a dozen gretchins nearby. Ork stormboys had gotten the message though and swarmed all over the battlesuit, but with a flash of pur energy, the rocket propelled beasts were knocked into the ash where their rockets blew-up, killing more boyz and nobs, while other were converted in red mist and chunks of meat.

"I was just joking about that quick death bit, yours, ugly, will be long and painful."

Goltoof grinned, showing all of his sharp, jagged, golden tusks. He was clad in kustom red mega-armor, with a kustom power klaw on his left and a large shoota mounted on his right. He summoned all of his remaining nobs to attack, but they soon found themselves blown to bits by the anti-infrantry shrapnel missiles. Now it was just a one on one match between him and the greenskin.

* * *

A blaze of energy engulfed the waves of orks from above, brilliant white beams dancing from one band to the next, leaving burning torches in their wake. Gazing up, Jhi'Kaara laughed as she saw wide delta blotting out of the suns. The frimiliar silhouttes of Manta missle destroyers hovered above the colony like guardian angels, finally enough of them to evacuate he whole colony. What she was not expecting were more fire warriors, battlesuilts, and gunships come down to support them.

They later found Gue'vesa'o Osman's battlesuit later on, in the middle of a good crater with a dead ork. The suit's left arm was torn off and the shull was badly damaged. Fortunately Kain was very much alive - bright pink and completely hairless, but alive none of the less.

"You have done well, Gue'vesa'o." O'Shas'ka - Commander Torchstar - said. "You bring credit to your Enclave and the fire caste. We understand that you are distressed by the causalities incurred under your command."

She paused as Kain shook his bald head.

"Casualties are a fact of war," he replied. "I am distressed by being starved of reinforcements that evidently exist and the unnecessary hardships thereby inflicted on my command

An unidentified high ranking air caste male spoke, "Surely it is not your place to question the strategies of the Shas'ar'tol?"

"It is my place to question poor strategy whenever I see it, ask O'Shavah that and he will say the same. Not to mention this strategy did not originate from my honored colleagues at the Shas'as'tol." He paused to pull a flimsy sheaf of message transcripts from inside his tunic. "I checked."

Aun'o Vor replied. "Your success in small unit engagement with the or'es'la has enabled the build up of larger reserves. When the campaign to retake Virruaka were to happen, it would have been undertaken with overwhelming strength."

"In other words, you were planning to throw lives now for an easier victory later." Yis'ten interjected. "Am I wrong, Vor?"

"As is our remit, for the greater good."

Kain rolled his eyes. Vor was one of the fossils from the old empire, when the ethereals ruled with an iron fist, and using the philosophy of the greater good as an excuss to control them.

There was an awkward moment of silence as Kain refused to respond. Aun'o Vor seemed genuinely puzzled.

"Gue'vesa'o, you act as if the war was lost, when your actions have virtually assured victory."

Kain dashed the transcript on the floor in sudden fury. "Because I was not told!"

The Vor drew drew back from the human's anger, his eyes becoming hooded. Kain breathed deeply, mastering himself before speaing again.

"You allowed me and my cadres to fight in the belief that no help was coming while you sat in orbit doing nothing. If it was not for Yis'ten and Fio'ui Mehmet, my cadres - what is left of it - secured the planet."

"Possibly," Vor admitted. "Yet your situation spurred you to the highest efforts. As you said, casualties are a fact of war. Yet you minimised your own and maximised those incurred by the enemy. Is that not a victory?"

"Of a sort," Kain admitted bitterly. "But here I thought we fought a long and bloody civil war in order to rid the empire of your backwards ways of thinking, Vor. Or do I have to tell O'Shovah what you told me?"

And for once, Aun'o Vor could not come up with an answer.

Kain turned back to the other caster representatives, mainly O'Shas'ka and Yis'ten. "O'Shas'ka, I would like for the remaining warriors to be put in my Enclave. They have proven themselves battle ready and capable."

"In better time, this would not be a problem. However, seeing that this is on frontier space, and the chances of more freebooters out there, I cannot allow it."

"I can raise up the money to put more Cadres together, O'Shas'ka," Yis'ten said. "But I do agree with her. If these were different times, but they are not. I will though, give you the warriors from your squad. They lead the defensive while you were being outfitted."

The human's face had become an immobile mask. He revealed nothing of his inner feelings towards the ethereal caste when he responded.

"I am merely a servant to the Emperor. If this is His will, I will comply. But know this, if something like this ever happens again, there will be a second civil war."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**Few!**

**Man that was long!**

**This just broke the 8000 word mark with ease. Now you can see why I took so damn long. (Add in school and life in general as well.)**

**I always wanted to do one about the Orks, because I think their twist to conventional orcs and the idea for their technology, that it is made from junk and scrap metal, is fascinating. Plus playing the Tau in the Dark Crusade, hunting the orks was the best part of the game. Now I have to think of something for the Kroot to do.**

**(7/28/2013)**

**Quick update. Just had to change some things. Such as changing Shadowsun with Torchstar. In this universe Shadowsun is dead, died fighting against Aun'va.**

**Til next time.**


	7. Ordo Xenos Report

**Hello Everybody, The New Mandalord here.**

**Another Friday means another chapter. **

**This was another busy week for me, so I do apologize for the short chapter.**

**I do hope you enjoy, and reviews are always welcomed.**

* * *

**Ordo Xenos Subject Report: #56846890**

**Name:** Jhi'Kaara

**Alias:** The Broken Mirror

**Gender:** Female

**Date of Birth:** Unknown.

**Planet of Birth**: Unknown. (Based off physical records we can speculate that she came from T'au.)

**Regiment:** Fourth T'au Enclave, "Osman's Heretics"

**Rank:** El – Second Commander, Pathfinder.

**Current Whereabouts:** Unknown.

There is very little intelligence on the alien known as Jhi'Kaara. On the little we do have, we can tell that if she were to be human she would have been in the Sisters of Battle.

Like most young Tau she completed her training and stepped into the Path of Fire her caste is well known for. While others were honored for their endurance, or agility, or precision with arms, hers was for her skill in reading the movement of her comrades and enemies: J'kaara, "the mirror". She was predicted to go down a path of leadership, and her pride was well earned.

As a newly formed sha'la, she participated in her first campaigns of war against the greenskin menace that harass Tau space. Even against mobs that could cripple Imperial planets, Jhi'Kaara and her Pathfinding team could lure the beasts into one trap after another, using Tau tactics of decimating them from a distance with a firepower the Orks could not hope to match, then falling back before the feral beasts could overrun the. From there she was elevated to the rank of UI – the veteran rank.

Then the Succession of Oba'rai, during the second sphere campaign. Oba'rai – whose records and previous name are lost to our archives – was an uncannily brutal planet, its arid plains no doubt reminding the aliens of their home world. The population fought fiercely against the xenos, but with only one regiment who had been promised the planet if they held it, it fell quite quickly. The Guardsmen made their last stand at Oba'rai's primary city, fortifying the walls and rallying a militia of thousands, but it was a lost cause. The Tau stealth teams infiltrated the bastion and destroyed their artillery precision, leaving the defenders helpless against their long-range missile and railguns. They raised the city without losing a single warrior. The Tau decided to spar no one, and sent in carnivore packs of their Kroot allies to finish off the population.

Jhi'Kaara, for one reason or another, decided to take her team inside. What happened to her was unknown, but what was known is that she received two things. The first was her scar, the other was her name: Jhi'Kaara, "the broken mirror".

After that the Ordo Xenos decided to keep track of her moments – when they could. She was reasonable for the assassination of the planetary governors of Minos, Cordoba, and Helios X, as well as the chaplains of the Celestial Dragoon, Hel Wolves, Adrian's Hammer, Grey Scythes, and Iron Blood Space Marine chapters, and because of her actions alone was the cause of the Arkhan Confederates on the Dolorosa Coil.

As of late, our intelligence reports say that she has reached the rank of EL, and are in complete control over the Pathfinder teams of the Fourth Enclave. Also, our reports say that she and Kain share the same bed. If this is true, Osman has committed more crime against the empire, and Jhi'Kaara should be taken in for experiments – if taken alive.

For the Emperor.

Gregor Eisnhorn

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**So I finally got Fire Caste, and it's pretty good so far. Not going to change my story for it.**

**For this chapter I thought of showing some of Kaara's past before she joined up with Kain. The fact she killed five, made-up, space marine chapters could tell you something.**

**Until next time.**


	8. Ultramarines

**Hey guys, The New Mandalord here.**

**Its another Friday, so a new chapter.**

**From now on, the new chapters are going to be based off the new-ish codexs. So the last codexs mean zilch.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

_The Fall of Macragge was not an over-night campaign that the Tau Empire thought of on a whim, it was in development ever since the Damocles Gulf campaign and small attempts, such as steering Hive Fleet Gorgon towards it, had failed. What they truly needed was a great distraction, something to pull the majority of the Space Marine chapter – mainly the Ultramarines – back to a distant location. So when the Void Dragon awoke on Mars, devastating its manufactorums, and heading for Terra, the Ultramarines were the first to respond in mass. This was the distraction that the Tau needed._

_It was not an easy campaign though, far from it. The Tau Empire and Ultramarines always had a secret respect for one another, whether fighting against the hive fleets, Chaos, Ork Waaaghs!, or against each other, but to survive and show the galaxy that they were a force to be reckoned with, Macragge had to be theirs._

_- _Excerpt from Tau Historia, _Sixth Sphere Expansion. _Written and editted by Po'la Cala'Sha'Ma.

* * *

Thunder loomed in the distance; it was going to rain soon. Not bullets, lasbolts, artillery, bolter rounds, or aerial bombardments, but actual rain.

Shas'vre Bas'shia Sha'kais always hated the rain, it made him feel slow and always messed with his instruments, and on Macragge it rained hard and sharp.

The humans on Macragge had lost; they just did not want to admit it. They just did not want to believe that their most dignified planet was about to fall to the Empire, and that their glorified protectors were nowhere to be found.

Bas'shia paid no mind to this. Words still rang in his head. His orders, delivered by the human commander himself, were issued without flattery. He hoped.

"Hunt," the gue'vesa had said. "I want to make this a relative quick campaign."

Bas'shia had nodded content with his role and assured of his place in the greater conflict. He just did as his name told him.

Now he strode through the ruins of the human cities, Fire warrior teams bowing with respect as he passed, something akin to awe flashing in their eyes. He paid them no mind.

He strode through teams of inactive Broadsides hunkered down within one of the many large cathedrals that covered this planet. They were under repair and were being resupplied for future bombardments.

"Shas'vre," a voice called to him. "Kauyon."

The voice belonged to his human commander, Kain Osman. Bas'shia found him an interesting study, because he was a student of Farsight, and spoke to their leader as an equal. He was unlike most commanders, a seasoned veteran and a brilliant tactical mind but also very adaptable to different environments. He even supported Bas'shia more dramatic strategies, as long as it did not waste more lives than it spared.

He stood beside the tech priest, Mehmet, and Shas'el Jhi'Kaara.

"Shas'vre Bas'shia," Kain said, seated behind a marble altar that he transformed into his command desk. "After your… _interesting _choice in destroying the defense cannons, your battlesuit is beyond repair."

"May it rest with the Omnissaih." Mehmet said.

"From Jhi'kaara's reports, the Fortress of Hera is heavily guarded with a full company of Predators, Fellblades, and at least one _Reaver-_class Titan. The Fortress of Hera holds the most powerful relics known to the chapter, and the Library of Ptolemy is the most complete in the Eastern Fringe. Taking it will cripple all remaining Ultramarine hostilities on the planet, but we cannot do a full scale assault. If we do, then they will destroy the monastery. That is why I am sending just you to take of it."

Their machines; their 'tanks' to use the gue'las' improper language, were brutal things. They were creations of arrogance and brawn, little different than the ramshackle machines constructed by the be'gel. Their Titans they put too much pride and hope into. They looked pathetic to Bas'shia, a child's interpretation of a nimble and graceful battlesuit. There was nothing laughable about their armaments though.

Bas'shia's eyes widened. Normally he enjoyed bombing an enemy position, but sending just him into a well-defended area was suicidal; far from any teachings of Farsight or the Greater Good.

"Sir, with no disrespect," Bas'shia said slowly. "I cannot fulfill this task, even with a broadside, is there another way?"

"Unfortunately, no," Kain said. "We need that monastery and all of the secrets it holds in one piece. But I never said that you will be going in a broadside."

Almost on some kind of other worldly command, more lights flickered on, showing Bas'shia what he would be using. It towered over all of the other battlesuits, even if it was still in a hunched-over position, and it was armed to the teeth with two heavy rail cannons positioned in the back, a heavy burst cannon fixed on one arm, and the still experimental Ion Accelerator on the other.

"You will be piloting the XV 104 Riptide Battlesuit," Mehmet explained. "I took the liberties of arming it to suit your abilities, and be more efficient on your mission. Its stealthfields and drones should help you get through the Crown Mountain range without alerting any unwanted attention, Omnissiah help us. From there, do what you do best _without _destroying the suit!"

"Or the monastery," Kain mumbled.

Brother-Sergeant Prycil cursed. The words he said gutterspeak, vulgar, and offensive to every form of life in existence. They betrayed a deeper sense of unease, a deep sense of unwanted emotions and lack of blessed logic in the adept.

He received admonishment from the tank's commander, but these were soften be attached signifiers expressed sympathy. "Emotive responses are unbecoming to servants of the machines."

Brother-Sergeant Pycil murmered his apologies and continued to scan the mountain range. With the war in the Sectorum Solar, most of the chapter had left to support the Emperor, leaving very few Ultramarines left on their home planet. So doing jobs such as scanning the mountain range, instead of leaving it to a servitor, has become a daily routine for Pycil.

The just as they had been since the invasion began, had been empty.

Pycil watched the screens before him with augmented eyes, clicking and whirring, while what remained of his brain scanned the rudimentary manifold for possible returns. The system malfunctioned, fuzzing in and out, rife with interference.

Something zipped across the manifold, something small and bowl-shape and impossibly fast. His eyes did not see the object. He tagged it and packaged the data for review by the captain.

"What is…?" the captain began.

He never finished his question.

Pycil never answered.

Plasma lanced into the Fellblades, breaking apart the _Trinity of the Crusade_. Pycil, the commander and the crew atomized.

The Predator, _Thorinn, _was lagging behind. Some stubborn part of the machine-spirit, irritated at being awoken so soon after birth, refused to move at full speed.

Brother-Sergeant Nihlus, commander of the _Thorinn_, was busy trying to explain the problem to his commanding officer on the company command Fellblade, _Imperial Truth_. He winced as static washed out his aural feeds.

"The _Emperor's Fury_ has vanished," hissed Nihlus.

"Explain," demanded Techmarine-Captain Talmin Caecilluis.

"It's just gone, sir," Nihlus replied, aghast at the lack of knowledge. Horror ripped through the tank. The lack of knowledge was both disturbing and terrifying.

Nihlus attempted to set aside conversation, to discard the unwelcome emotions washing through him. He focused on the blessed tanks and brothers beside him. He returned to his continued conversation with the Force Commander on the _Imperial Truth_. Static again washed into his ears, but Nihlus now swore he could hear something under it, something that sounded… other.

He was about to warn his Captain, to ask for clarification when two shots hit the tank abeam.

The _Thorinn _ceased to exist.

Bas'shia smiled. It was smile of gloating, nor a smile of arrogance or even victory. Such things were beneath him, more fitting for the gue'la he was hunting.

His drones surged ahead searching, reporting. In truth he did not need them. The gue'las made no attempt to hide as they defended their precious monastery.

Two had already fallen by his hand. Destroyed in the name of the Tau Empire, cast down for their rejection and their slavish adherence to a doctrine of intolerance, xenophobia, and zealously.

The Ultramarines scattered before him, falling upon their knees at the sight of him and his machine. Screeches broadcast across the communications network, the signature of hunting kroot while the more clipped and professional tones of advancing fire warrior stealth teams kept him abreast of the greater battle abroad. Other voices were noticeable for their absence, as was only proper.

The drones chattered at him as they scouted, providing a detailed map of the surrounding region and the waiting armored division. Bas'shia eyes narrowed in concentration as he adapted his plan, his kauyon, to the situation at hand. He issued fresh orders.

He smiled his lipless smile, blue flesh crinkling at the motion.

"_Thorinn, _be advised you are falling behind. Increase your speed and join the line." Techmarine-Captain Talmin Caecilluis of the Ultramarines, commanding aboard the Fellblade_ Imperial Truth_, was sick of saying that and even more from the apologies. Annoyance, so strong it overwhelmed his emotional dampeners, surged through his systems.

Then the feed to the _Thorinn _vanished. There was no explanation, no report, and no hint. Talmin's irritation grew. He noticed something that washed away his annoyance with apprehension.

Two other machines were missing. Talmin tried to raise the Predator _Thorinn _and the Fellblade _Trinity of the Crusade _on the vox. No response from either.

Talmin apprised the tank division's Force Commander, Magos Jullius Prescott, who was in charge of the _Reaver_-class Titan _Emperor's Fury_, of the situation. Prescott, arrogance flushing through the noosphere, ordered that the _Imperial Truth_ to continue its course. The xenos could not possibly harm such a mighty machine, a Titan in the service to the Omnissiah. It was a massive thing, crafted in now defunct forges by Macraggian tech-priests that were now long dead. The _Imperial Truth _rumbled down no particular path. It had no need for roads. It made its own. He felt ashamed for punching through the homeland of Roboute Gilliman, for bringing harm to the planet's honor, but that will happen if the xenos and traitors are able take the planet. He could only pray to the Omnissiah and that his battle-brothers, Primarchs, and He would forgive him for this sin.

Something akin to pandemonium swept through the _Imperial Truth_, flooding its systems and crew. Tanks were dropping, blessed machines, holy in the eyes of the Omnissiah and His faithful, dead and destroyed without warning, without response.

Outrage and chaos. The tank commander, the battalion head, senior Techmarines all were shouting in Lingua Technis and Gothic. They were not afraid for their own safety. Their lives were sacrosanct, protected by the Emperor and the Omnissiah. What brought them outrage was failure. They all knew that the Tau would come for their monastery – their home - for all of the relics and ancient technology locked inside. They will defend and repel the invaders – or die holding the line.

The lights and smoke censors swung and swayed, casting crazed through the hazy interior. Talmin frantically searched for the _Thorinn _and found no sign of the tank. The machine was dead.

Two more tanks, two more blessed machines, disappeared from the display before Talmin. The _Deus Machnicus_ and the _Omega-346_, might Predator tanks, the pinnacle of Imperial and Machnicus perfection, dead and gone.

Magos Prescott thundered into the vox demanding something, anything, some small hint that he had control of the situation. He received no response.

Tense minutes passed; tense minutes in which another Predator and Fellblade died. Talmin heard it die this time. Heard it die with his flesh ears. All aboard the _Imperial Truth_ did. The light flickered in sympathetic loss, the machine spirit manifesting the sympathetic pain. Feedback screeched through aural plugs. Static danced along the interior. Pain, electric hot, flooded the crew's system. The thing, whatever hunted them, whatever dared challenge the might of the Ultramarines and the Mechanicus, was close.

Talmin raged, as close to apoplexy as it was possible for a servant blessed by the Omnissiah and Emperor with extensive augmetics to be. His binaric cants were clipped things, appended with most urgent and forceful signifiers. Talmin could feel his rage bleeding into the manifold and it affected others within the Fellblade as well. Underlying the rage, underlying that heady emotion, was something deeper, more primal. Talmin realized with a start what it was, for he felt it too. He felt it seeping into the manifold from all in the Fellblade.

The feeling was dread.

Fear made the gue'la weak. Fear made them uncertain, made them commit mistake. 'Thinning the heard' his human allies called it, it was a sport them just as much as him. Even though these were their Space Marines, who were engineered to know no fear, their actions were still the same. They reacted exactly as he expected. The tanks were beginning to clump together, beginning to form fighting clusters as they continued their patrols.

This Riptide, his new warsuit, was perfect for this purpose, perfect for this hunt.

The guns, his guns, whined as they cooled down.

He stepped over the burning wreckage of the dead gue'la tank. A massive carving, shaped like a human skull, half-machine, half-bone glared at him, a mark of gue'la superstition.

He could see a standing war machine at the end of the pass, plumes of black smoke spitting up from primitive engines.

Bas'shia smiled again. His next crowning moment, his coup de grace as humans called it, would be taking down the Titan.

Talmin whispered hushed orders into the vox. He urged the remaining Predator and Fellblade commanders to cluster together, to seek safety in numbers.

Even as he did so, he watched as more tank sinifiers wink out, lost on the auspex. The _Fulgrim's Grave, Pride of Macragge, Primarch Hammer, Pattern XYZ44, _and the _Devine Retribution _all died impotent. None sighted their killer. None fire back in anger. Forty-eight machines remained.

They caught the first sight of the predator hunting them three minutes later.

A junior tech-adept approached Talmin, mumbling honorifics in Lingua Technis, clutching a pict in sweaty palms. Timan snatched it with an extended mechadendrite.

"Is this confirmed?" Talmin demanded, staring wide-eyed at the printout.

The tech-adept responded, affronted, before remembering whom it addressed. "The machine is certain. There was no interference."

Talmin inloaded the data onto the noosphere.

With part of his brain, Talmin analyzed the data, parsing it, applying blessed logic to the image. The rest of his brain was dedicated towards keeping the battalion moving to the front line.

Thunder rumbled outside. Thunder or something else dying.

Talmin flinched and what remained of his organic features grew an unheard of pale. Unbidden, the object captured by the pict emerged into his consciousness.

It was tall, tall and vaguely humanoid. The curled around it like a diaphanous robe, revealing and consealing in the same moment. The smoke sight was horribly intimate. Flashes of light split up the smoke from various points on the various points on the humanoid shape. The thunder of guns, so many weapons. The humanoid shape should have been reassuring, should have been comforting, but the figure was not squat. This was not one of his reborn battle-brothers locked away in a dreadnought, no blessed machine crafted by loving human hands.

What he could see of the thing was all clean lines, rounded intersections and malign… _otherness_. The machine, the enemy, the predator that stalked them, had penetrated their lines, moving far past any front, striking deep into the heart of the Ultramarines. It was halting their advances, keeping them from moving forward. What's more, it was picking them off, killing them, denying them of duty.

The dread afflicting the manifold intensified as Maggos Prescott, safe in the _Emperor's Fury_, made his own identifications and conclusions.

Talmin and his adepts redoubled their prayers.

The prayers were reassuring. The twinned tongues of Lingua Technis and High Gothic curled serpentine around each other, drifting over the tank speakers. They provided a comforting counterpoint to the hammering bangs coming from outside.

They sounded like drums, like rage and anger.

Commander Eryn Bersek, hunched over his station, was half blind. Fire flared. Lightning stabbed. Faces howled in the outer pict viewers.

He could not see their companion, the _XYZ44_, through the thronging menials in Mining Repositorium Location 867-AG. His only hint that it was there was the constant vox burbling of Lingua Technis coming from his counterpart in the _XYZ44_.

"Desist and disperse," he announced. His voice was calm, despite his inner turmoil.

The menials ignored him.

"_Fulgrim's Grave_, why have you stopped?" whispered that machine-brained bastard-brother, Talmin, the clipped professional tones of an experience techmarine. His brother had abandoned too much of his pure humanity to the filth of the machine. While Bersek aspired to the hieghts of his bio-engineered perfection, he could not help but loath the man for his callousness, for his logic. Someday, Emperor willing, Berserk would be the same; encased within a holy dreadnought. For now, though, he retained some connection to his humanity.

"Labor menials, Captain. We are swamped by labor menials," Berserk said, trying to sound contrite.

Talmin's response was a non-verbal sree of nonsense data, the Lingua Technis equivalent of derisive snort.

"You will advance," Talmin ordered.

Berserk canted his compliance. Their progress was slow at first.

"Desist and disperse," the commander tried once more. Again he failed.

The Predator lurched forward, treads screeching as they failed to latch on to the rockcrete surface of the improvised road. Crew flew from their seats, interface sockets spurting oil and blood as they were violently disconnected. Sparks flew as machine systems failed. The machine spirit growled from the engine, then coughed, wheezed and sputtered out.

The screen blinked at him in angry red letters

_Red armor hit._

Eryn Berserk felt blood dribble down his face, smelled the rich fluid in his nose, tasted it on the air with multiple inbuilt sensors.

"Dead. We're all dead," someone moaned, half wailing with despair and fear.

Berserk dragged himself forward, his enhanced legs broken and unresponsive. He was searching, hoping, praying, that some function yet remained with the _Fulgrim's Grave_. The power flickered.

He could hear a fierce whining sound from outside. Heavy footfalls thumped into the ground. Something came close, some cursed thing.

The commander's hand stretched before a console. He cursed as he failed to reach.

The screen before him flickered as outer pict-viewers cycled through default modes. They saw nothing and transmitted nothing.

Berserk screamed with effort as he felt his life fade out.

Finally, he reached the console.

He shook as he typed, as he ordered the machine to perform its holy purpose.

They were still transmitting a minute later when the xenos machine outside opened fire and terminated the _Fulgrim's Grave_.

Talmin watched as the enemy machine killed the _Fulgrim's Grave, _screens flickering as the machine spirit processed the images. It stood, staring down at the outer picters, its own inscrutable lenses clicking and whirring. It took one step forward, flames backlighting it. The tiny head cocked to the side as if puzzled. Muzzle flare distorted the image, but the looming xenos machine was the same deep red as the previous image. If there were any differences in between this machine and the one in the pict before, Talmin did not notice them. Logic dictated that they were the same. He searched for some inkling of humanity, some anthropomorphic quality that would make it familiar.

There was nothing. The machine was so different, so other, so _xenos_, that it nearly broke the techmarine's mind.

But Talmin smiled. Something akin to joy spread through the manifold. They had spotted the machine, the picts clear as they could be amid the night and the fire. What was more important, however, is that they now knew where it was.

The bait was set. The kauyon, his hunt, his mission, neared completion. The Space Marine gue'la had proved easy to predict.

They believed him to be in a gathering space, a square position of the mountain rangedevoid of any cover, even from their looming Titan. He could hear their chatter over the crude communications networks. He paid no attention to their words. He listened to their tone, to their panic.

They tried to hide it beneath crowing victory calls and bravado. They thought him cornered. They thought him easy to kill. They were wrong.

Bas'shia would teach the error of their arrogance.

His treads were heavy, for this machine lacked the perfect subtlety of a stealth suit. He had no need for stealth now. He wanted the gue'la to know that he was near, to knowthat death was about to claim them. Each bear of their hearts would be gasping thump declaring that the extent of their mistakes were known.

This was not like past hunts, like against the feral orks or fanatical works of Chaos. Fear now was merely another tool of the hunt. There was no hatred felt for the gue'la, omly sadness, only a peculiar form of regret. There was so much they could have learned from each other, but they were bred into a doctrine of madness and ignorance.

But it was not role to question. His gue'vesa'o had spoken. The gue'la were dead. Their planet now belonged to the Tau Empire.

The _XYZ44 _was the first to enter Mining Repositorium Location 867-AG. It was also the first to die. The xenos machine fire once. The accuracy was stunning. Bright plasma, painfully blue and white, lanced straight up the _44_'s gun barrel and immolated the crew within.

The two tanks entered from different side trails, guns already firing, machine prayers broadcast loud from external voxes. _Pride of Macragge_ and _Primarch Hammer _joined them, their own lascannons speaking, their own voxs transmitting the same holy prayers.

The xenos machine stood unmoved, undaunted. Plasma streamed from the mounted guns while drones rotated in complex configurations before it. Each shot from the Predators or Fellblades impacted against the shimmering shield.

Each shot was answered by the warsuit.

It wheeled and turned, killing everything it faced.

Once powerful tanks were reduced to burning scrap metal.

Talmin, minutes away in the _Imperial Creed_, listened, watched and trembled.

He screamed from his command throne, reverting to the flesh-voice of his youth, stress beginning to overwhelm his augmented brain. "Kill it!"

Talmin fed tanks into the fray, trying to overwhelm the xenos battlesuit, following the orders of Magos Prescott.

He was sending them like grox to the slaughter.

"How much longer until we kill the damn thing? How many more minutes until we hit the Repositorium?" Talmin demanded, flesh-voice disguising his quivering feelings.

"Two minute, sire," came the replay from a robed enginseer.

Talmin nodded, his command throne gripped tightly metal hands.

Talmin dedicated part of his vocal functions to whisper benedictions to the Omnissiah, praying for more speed, praying for victory, praying for death.

With swift haptic commands, Talmin Caecillius, sent more men and more machines to their deaths.

The true test had begun. Whether his suit would survive would be up to Mehmet's 'machine spirit' superstion, but this was it. This was the climax of kauyon.

This was what the hunters called the Rai'kor Kau'va, the Moment of Perfect Patience. The moment of exposure, of endurance. The hunt lived or died.

More gue'la machines challenged him and died. But with every second, their numbers grew, and every second he stood more chance to be hit, to be slowed down.

Bas'shia's smile became a grimace. His accompanying drones chattered at him, their intelligence excited him. Their reports did little to ease his mind, to ease the tension of the moment. He blinked to shield his eyes from another tank's death, railgun discharge ringing.

Another.

The tank flew backwards, burning, splintering, dying. It erupted in a mushroom cloud of flame and dirty smoke.

Another.

The gue'la vehicles ceased all forward momentum. Smoke, dark and greasy pouring out of interior.

Another.

The cannon rotated on his left arm, spitting death, plunking them into the gue'la machine. The human tank blazed with fire as the fuel tank ignited and combusted.

Each dying, each exploding in a dozen different permutations. Some died with screams, others with deafening sounds. Some merely froze, smoke emerging from ports in the hull. But what mattered was that each was dead. Each was silenced.

This was a challenge the zealot gue'la could not ignore, not while he stood before him, the object of their wrath, of their so called 'nonexistent' emotions. Missiles thudded down into them, killing them. The gue'la did not note the direction they came from, only the destruction they wrought.

The capacity of the Riptide battlesuit for destruction was prodigious, its tactical applications perfect for this moment. The height, the sheer promise of such a machine was intoxicating. It was graceful in a way that could not be equaled. Not by the Imperial's Baneblades, not by the superstitious tech-priest's titans, be'gel stompas, and not these space marine tanks. The perfect melding of two castes, with earth caste ingenuity and fire caste bombastic nature, were now working in destructive harmony.

Bas'shia grimanced, but the smile lurked beneath, wait to emerge.

The bait had been taken. The kauyon was ready.

These simple gue'la tanks died, bu the true prize, the purpose for his hunt was almost within sight.

The faster Predators tanks rushed forward, pushed in to face the warsuit, to cripple it and try to bring it down, while the remaining Fellblades were giving them support. But they were failing, and worse dying.

Talmin was annoyed now. The techmarine's eyes twitched. The only sign of continued intellect was his presence on the manifold, the continued hissed cants directed the crew. Talmin could not stop shaking, irritation and anxiousness flashed through his mind at the frailty of his human psyche. Both emotions spread through his systems like a corrupted disease. One part of him wanted to tear the xenos and Prescott to pieces with his own two hands, while the other part wanted to discet the alien warsuit piece by piece. The closure they approached, the more framiliar the design became. This machine was created by the mad tech-priest Mehmet, and he wanted to see how far gone this enginseer had gone in his time with the xenos.

Five tanks remained now, five glorious machines remained with him now. They were _Temeraire, Bellerophon, Collingwood, Emperor's Vanguard, _and of course the _Imperial Creed_, while the _Emperor's Fury _continued to stand guard at the monastery. The _Imperial Creed _was the only Feelblade in the outfit, the rest were Predators that just rolled off the assembly line floor earlier that week. The other tank commanders chattered at him, nagging, seeking his attention. Talmin gave them no response. They were afraid. Their armor was vulnerable. Talmin felt glad that he sat with the _Creed_, its armor proof of the manifest destiny of a man and the benevolence to the Omnissiah.

The smaller machines clustered around the Fellblade like a juvenile child around their mother. The arterial they advanced down, the longest known road that entered three quarry, trembled beneath their combine.

Talmin could see the flashing ahead, the smoke drifted from the battle. Five hundred meters until entry.

Three hundred meters.

One hundred meters.

Then it dawned on him. This xenos warsuit wanted them in the quary where it ruled supreme. It wanted all the tanks destroyed, so it could take on the titan unopposed. Talmin switched to the coms, but hesitated. From what he witnessed the xenos could hack into their com signals, and giving the new order would only cause him and the other tanks to become new target. He just gave one order to the crew of the _Imperial Creed,_ to fall back to the monastery and let the rest of his men fend for themselves.

Bas'shia noticed this, but paid no heed. Instead he focused on the tanks that were left behind. The sound of thunderous guns, and bright flashes of plasma soon became the death of the remaining tanks. With their tanks now reduced to melting scrap metal in the middle of the quarry, Bas'shia turned his sight of his prize; the titan standing watch at the monastery.

Fire flared as missiles deployed, trailing brightness through the thich grey smoke. Five missiles, crafted by the genius of the Earth Caste, guided by the perfect technology of T'au, lanced towards the gue'la titan.

He could hear them screaming. The titan desperately wanted to break away, to run, to survive this doom that came for it. Its turbines squealed as the leg joints moved, but if it tried to retreat, then it would cause damage to the monastery. It mattered little.

The speed of the Riptide was faster than what he was used to, but when he was able to knock the titan to the ground it was worth it.

The shas'vre's smile returned, dry blue flesh crinkling.

Their Lord Commander aboard the _Emperor's Fury_ was dead, slain without exacting and vengeance.

Talmin Caecilluis, Techmarine-Captain of the Ultramarines, commanding battalion magos aboard the _Imperial Creed_, stared without seeing. The man, shocked, aghast, appalled, stumbled to his feet. He didn't remember falling.

He sucked in a judging breath, and ordered, "Fire!"

The _Imperial Creed_ bucked back as the Accelerator Cannon fired a density-core armor piecing shell to bring down the warsuit's shields, and then casted a hailstorm of fire from each Havoc Launcher, Multi-Meta, and Heavy Bolter that the glorious machine was armed with.

Bas'shia was caught off guard from the shock of the first blast, and if it was not for the Riptide's powerful shield generators he would have been dead. But because of the suit's Nova Reactor, it was strong enough to disperse the shot and recharge the cells at a faster rate. The crippled titan made for the perfect diversion for him, allowing take the fire in his place.

He returned no fire. He merely waited the attack out, waited for the gue'la fire to slacken as he knew it would. Their sensors were crude things, easily disrupted by adverse conditions. The thunder of guns slowed and the ceased. Gue'la tank commander was now trying to find him, to see if he was dead, to ascertain the efficacy of their own craft. He waited for the smoke to clear.

Shas'vre Bas'shia Sha'kais did not.

Fire flared as more missiles deployed, trailing brightness through the thick grey smoke, flowed by a powerful blast from the rail cannons.

A console exploded, sparks flaring against the darkness. Bodies layed everywhere while servitors mumbled for now defunct orders.

Fire spat, pitch flowed, and oil dribbled.

Someone gibbered nearby, a scree of numbers and letters; jumbling, senseless, useless data. Talmin stumbled through the crew compartment. Each new blink and click of his eyes bringing with a new sight of devastation and destruction. He saw the emaciadted corpses of his brothers, still mouthing words, still trying to pray to Him.

Talmin felt a thrum of joy. The Emperor had heard them. The _Imperial Creed _yet lived, its armor proof against the predatory corruption of the xenos, its machine spirit doggedly refusing to succumb.

The tank jerked forward.

Talmin Caecilluis barked out orders in holy machine cant. His voice was assured, steady. The guns opened up. The _Imperial Creed _answered again.

Bas'shia weathered the incoming storm. The last gue'la machine thundered towards him, driving headlong through the smoke. He felt no panic, no fear, only sheer joy. This was what he lived for, the _mon'wern'a,_the killing blow, the end of his kauyon, his time to shine as a great hunter or die in the largest and most amazing explosion known to the fire caste.

Unseen in the barrage, unwitnessed by the gue'la, flew two sets of drones. Their black and red paint was unbuttered, un chipped by gue'la guns. They chattered at Bas'shia.

The shas'vre smile returned, dry blue flesh crinkling again; more than ever.

Behind the drones, striding down the path from the Repositorium that minutes earlier saw the Ultramarine's armor advance, came the rest of his ta'ro'cha, his war party, their weaponry still smoking, vapours still sliding from their shoulders.

The Ultramarine's tank fell into stunned silence, guns smoking. Their main barrel dipped, almosr an acknowledgement of defeat. The tau Riptides dipped their guns in turn, an acknowledgment of the tenacity of their foe.

They opened fire. The combined might of the Empire was shown through their guns. Talmin was slightly proud, because he and the _Imperial Creed _died the same way they were born: in fire and blood.

Vre'al'anuk, her heart was burning with excitement, was the first to speak. Her words were filled with passion that rule her senses, that made her a productive member of the fire caste, but Bas'shia felt pity for which ever male she got her hands on afterwards. "Fools, the lot of them! Blind, ignorant, zealot, barbaric fools," she said.

Bas'shia said nothing. He respected her opinion, but her view of an enemy that she did not have to fight made something sour boil inside him.

Vre'Jonson, second of the ta'ro'cha, displayed the naiveté of his thoughts, of his race, with his response. He articulated genuine regret and sadness they felt at the necessity of their war. "It's a damn shame, little bird," he was mainly talking to al'anuk, "You might be okay with this, but I'm not exactly _thrilled_ with death."

"Good, you shouldn't be, life is a sacred thing," Bas'shia said, giving the young human wisdom that only a warrior could.

"It's just hard to remember that sometimes, Bas."

"This is true," he said, giving al'anuk a silent order to set the rest of the Fellblade on fire. "But we still must remember, and honor their words. Courage and honor."

"Courage and honor," Jonson said out of respect.

"Courage and honor," al'anuk said out of pressure.

Words hissed across the cadre's communication network, seeking him, and his ta'ro'cha. They were needed elsewhere, the order claimed, and that the kroot would clear out any remaining Ultramarine personal within the monastery. Another gue'la armor column had been spotted, this time with three _Reaver-_class titans, had been spotted. Another threat to their foothold and conquest.

Shas'vre Bas'shia Shi'kais strode away from the burning wreck of the gue'la vehicle. He did not wait for the rest of his ta'ro'cha to join him. He knew they would follow regardless.

"Come," Commander Kauyon'Do said. "The kauyon begins again!"

* * *

**Author's Notes**

**So I had alot of request of how Macragge was taken away from the Ultramarines, and I hope the execution was right. I just figured if the Viod Dragoon was awaken on Mars then the Ultramarines would be the first to arrive to defend Terra and take back Mars. A perfect time for an attack. I do really like the Space Marines, _but_ the new Riptides stole my heart and we made sweet love!**

**Sorry for the wait. I had computer problems, final exams, and a new job. Damn you life!**

**Later.**


End file.
